


Absurdities and Echoes

by flambydelrabies



Series: Weltschmerz [2]
Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Body Horror, Coping with trauma, Depersonalization, Digit Amputation, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, More tags to be added, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Torture, Self-Harm, Shared Consciousness, ToS2 Does Not Exist, discussion of suicide, rated for violence and heavy themes, recommended you read weltschmerz first but most of this will make sense on its own
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:20:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 49,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25042303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flambydelrabies/pseuds/flambydelrabies
Summary: The worlds have been reunited and Lloyd and Zelos embark on their quest for exspheres. With Zelos’ diagnosis of a familiar illness, Genis haunted by ghosts of the past, and an unfamiliar enemy following in their wake, a new journey begins. Direct sequel to Weltschmerz.
Relationships: Genis Sage/Mithos Yggdrasill - ambiguous/implied, Lloyd Irving/Zelos Wilder, Seles Wilder & Zelos Wilder
Series: Weltschmerz [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1813603
Comments: 9
Kudos: 39





	1. Muted Shifting of Space

**Author's Note:**

> A couple things:  
> This is going to be relatively standalone from Weltschmerz because it takes place where the worlds are reunited and the exsphere journey begins. But if you didn't read the first fic, excepting some minor details, this is more or less what you need to know to read this one comfortably:  
> \- Lloyd grew up in Cruxis and ditched to save the world  
> \- Tethe’alla was the world in decline and Zelos went on the journey of Regeneration  
> \- Zelos was meant as a body for Mithos rather than Martel because of prolonged and sustained Angel Toxicosis (which is what I'm just calling the illness with the ridiculously long name for brevity’s sake). Anyone with a mana signature similar to Mithos and Martel is prone to Toxicosis.  
> \- Genis betrayed the party for Cruxis then changed his mind at the last minute  
> \- Zelos killed Mithos  
> \- Lloyd and Zelos are in a relationship
> 
> This entire fic was Free Real Estate since it takes place post-canon, so... lots of fun. There are going to be many references to and expansions of my fic Ice Palace in this - not a necessary read and does not take place in this AU, but good supplementary reading regardless re: my Zelos headcanons (also one of my better fics in general). From the first chapter to the last, this fic is dedicated to my beta reader Roro, who helped me brainstorm Weltschmerz two years ago and upon its completion said “I’m not ready for it to be over yet” to which I said “let’s write a fuckin sequel”
> 
> Enjoy!

_“For how could I help you?_

_I’ve no cure for happiness.”_

_\- Anna Akhmatova_

//

“Lloyd! We’ve almost got ‘em!”

The clang of metal rang through the field in perfect congruence with quick-witted fists gripped around silver blades and the click of gritted teeth. Such harmony, while unusual at best, had become pleasantly familiar to Lloyd and Zelos, who had spent twelve months of waning Aselian moons on a journey all of their own. The thrill of battle, the exhaustion of rigorous travel, and the newfound comfort of sleeping under the stars had become commonplace, but as the former chosen leapt forward and plunged his blade into the throat of the monster before him, the least he could say was that the past year had been far from _mundane._

“Alright! Looks like we’ve got another one!” Lloyd donned a bright smile as he wrestled a tiny gem from the jaws of their foe. The exsphere that sparkled in the gentle rays of sunlight shining down on them matched the glimmer in Lloyd’s eyes, and no sun, stars, or marble-sized parasite could have made Zelos look away.

There was certainly a reason he never got bored.

Zelos lunged towards the other boy, and the entirety of his demeanor transitioned from that of combative strength to tenderness as he wrapped an arm around Lloyd’s shoulder and planted a kiss on his cheek. A kiss gentle enough to be chaste, but sharp enough Zelos could nearly taste the salt and toil on his skin.

“My cool, sweet hunny! There you go again, saving the day! What would the world _ever_ do _without you_!?”

“Ah, well, you were the one who did all the work this time, really.” Lloyd struggled to accept compliments even on the best of days, and that certainly didn’t stop his face from growing flushed following Zelos’ words of praise. He’d certainly never admit it, but looking at the growing shade of rich red against Lloyd’s cheeks, Zelos had finally found a shade of that damned colour that he _liked_.

The redhead didn’t answer, instead migrating his impatient lips and planting them directly against Lloyd’s. “H-hey! We can do that later!” The brunette groaned, breaking from the kiss nearly as soon as it had begun. “It’s been a long day. Let’s go settle down somewhere for the night.”

A smirk slithered its way across Zelos’ face, the single-sided grin of the snake he knew he’d always been-- this time, without the poison. “How about a real bed this time, babe?”

A quick roll of Lloyd’s eyes, sly enough to match Zelos’ half-smile and equally sultry. “Sure. Real bed this time. Pretty sure Sybak is closeby.”

“Well, what are we waiting for, then? Let’s get going.” Sure enough, the outline of towering buildings stood tall on the horizon-- wide enough to calculate as a city skyline and no less than alluring after weeks spent living transient. _‘Exciting’_ certainly wasn’t a bad thing, but Zelos could never complain about the comfort of a warm bed, either. Some things never changed.

Still, others _did--_ namely, a golden sunset that gradually warped its way across the sky, turning afternoon to evening with enough beauty to make a heartbeat throb up into one’s throat. Lloyd and Zelos trudged through dirt pathways and lush grass with arms interlocked; both were weary enough after a day’s travel for Lloyd to lean his shoulder against Zelos’ own, pushing enough of his weight against his partner as if to say _“stay with me, please”--_ as if that were a question that needed asking to begin with.

“Y’know, your birthday’s coming up, Lloyd,” Zelos said with an absent mind as he let their fingers interlock and a genuine smile creep across his face. “It’ll be the third one since we met, second one together. Don’t make me spoil you rotten, now.”

A gentle laugh, coupled with a soft smile to match Zelos’ own. “I mean, my birthday _was_ the day we met. Doesn’t that make it our anniversary?”

“I mean, sure thing.” That’s not how anniversaries worked and Zelos _knew_ it, but if there was one thing his relationship with Lloyd had taught him, it was that taking the unconventional path made things _far_ more interesting. Zelos’ free hand then drew itself to his ruby-red gem positioned neatly between sharp collarbones, and the _tap-tap_ of a fingernail against the stone’s own tiny heartbeat rang in his ears. “Same day you gave me this.”

“I guess so, huh?” Lloyd furrowed his brows. “Once we’re done destroying exspheres, we’ll have to get rid of our own, too.”

“Well, of course, hunny. You really think I want to wear this thing forever and live for four thousand years? _No thank you._ ” A quick shudder nearly made Zelos recoil from even Lloyd’s touch-- he knew how to play the game well enough that with anyone else, he could say he was only putting on a show. No use. Petty lies were the last thing that worked with the one person who could tear straight through him, then put him back together with a single gaze.

“Hey.” Lloyd only gripped Zelos’ hand tighter, and all the redhead could think about was how the setting sun spun Lloyd’s brown eyes gold. “We’re done with that now. We’ve got a life of our own, and when we’re finished our journey, we’ll live that life without my exsphere, and without your Cruxis crystal. Right now, we just don’t really stand a chance without them.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Zelos sighed. “Really is a shame _Daddy Aurion_ couldn’t come along with us, isn’t it? Wasn’t that his _final wish_ and all?” Zelos’ words dripped of sarcasm; after all, he couldn’t think of anything less appealing than dragging his father-in-law along on a journey like this.

A grimace resulted, and an appropriate one, at that. “Can you _not_ call him stuff like that?”

“Daddy Kratos?”

Lloyd’s eyes locked with his partner’s in a quick, albeit playful glare. “Just Kratos, please. And I haven’t heard from him in Goddess-knows-how-long.”

“Still being a _wonderful_ father, I see,” Zelos said back, and the moment the words left his mouth the glare was returned with full force. 

The subject of _Kratos_ was certainly a point of contention between the couple, and any quips or critiques of his parenting style went over as well as any discussion of Zelos’ own father did. The only difference between those two conversation pieces was that Lloyd chose not to prod at the latter-- an affair long since put to rest, yet still bled crimson when punctured. Much as night was to day, Zelos often became so frustrated by Kratos so often he could hardly restrain himself; the jabs and jeers he spoke into existence all but paled in comparison to those he held back. 

By now, Lloyd chose only to de-escalate rather than to fight back, because he knew Zelos well enough that his frustrations were born from the overprotective nature of a passionate lover rather than malice. “Oh, c’mon. We’re almost there.”

What must have been twenty minutes of travel by foot felt like no more than five-- hardly enough to justify using their single Rheaird for any reason other than to watch the waning magenta tinges speckle through the sky. Tonight, watching them from ground sufficed, because sleeping in each other’s arms under a _real roof_ in a _real bed_ was the kind of treat that could dull even the most vivid sunset. By now, the rest of Zelos’ surroundings mattered less than the people he surrounded himself with, and the only person he wanted had already melted his cold, winter heart.

That alone was more than he could ever have hoped for.

The two boys came to a grinding halt on the city limits, two outsiders looking in; “Looks like you’re right. Sybak. My beautiful hunny, _Lloyd Aurion,_ saving the day once more.” Cupping his fingers around Lloyd’s chin, Zelos smiled as he stole another kiss, and this time Lloyd surrendered, feeling Zelos’ grin pressed against his own.

“Ah, well--” He stammers. Again, with the compliments; a year traveling together and even longer than that hopelessly in love, and the redhead's praise still made Lloyd’s heart leap from his chest. It was nothing short of a wonder Zelos couldn’t feel it beat and throb every time the distance between them closed in. 

Finally, he finished the sentence the only way he knew how: “I love you, Zelos.”

A short, steady breath warming his lips and the widening of an honest grin was all the response Lloyd needed.

“Alright, let’s get ourselves a room then, huh?” Zelos broke away at a moment’s notice, like the sharp drop of a pin against linoleum as he removed his hands from Lloyd’s grasp. Instead, he hid them in his pockets like a well-kept secret.

As Zelos began his journey to the barrier wherein Aselian fields met cobblestone paths, all Lloyd could do is cry “ _Hey!_ Zelos! Wait for me!” and reach to hook his arm around that of his partner. To his great discontent, the former chosen did nothing more than swat the grasp away and carry on.

“Not now, bud. Let’s just get to the inn first.” The same way Lloyd’s heart skyrocketed from his chest at Zelos’ praise, words like _‘bud’_ only made it drop and greet his churning stomach.

“And here we go. The inn. Easy peasy.” The door barged open, and Zelos’ open throttle to the pretty, young woman at the desk left no further time for idle chatter, much less to indulge in the sweet nothings from moments prior. Instead, his eyelids drooped as he raised a single brow, leaving Lloyd’s frown to only cave further toward his chin as Zelos crooned toward the innkeeper.

“Oh, the great Zelos Wilder! It’s been _so long_ since you’ve come to visit!” Each word fluttered from her mouth as if shocked that the _chosen_ to _save the world_ would grace their little inn with his presence (how _picturesque_ ). It seemed Zelos certainly still had more notoriety than he expected, even without the critical acclaim of a title he hated looming over his head.

“Couldn’t resist seeing a _pretty lady_ like you, now could I?” It was _degrading,_ really, and much more so to Lloyd than it would ever be to nameless women, or Zelos himself.

A wink, and you could nearly hear the infatuation trickling from her voice when she looked at him and asked _“So, one bed or two?”,_ before glancing to Lloyd for a fraction of a second, as if nothing more than a second thought (or, perhaps, not _even a thought_ at all).

As much as Lloyd loved sleeping in a real bed, this always had to be his least favourite part of every trip to a city; whether a tiny town like Iselia or a sprawling metropolis like Meltokio, the process was always the same and the cycle repeated itself, even after a year in a wide open world together.

A metallic ring echoed through the room as Zelos _smacked_ a miscellaneous amount of Gald to the counter without a care in the world. For all he knew, it may not even have been enough for a room with two beds, but the likelihood of the innkeeper complaining was slim to none. “Bud and I will take two beds for the night,” Zelos said with an artificial enthusiasm Lloyd could see through like a jagged shard of glass. Hearing Zelos’ words only made him want to break it _further._

The fling of a closing door shielded the two boys from view, allowing Zelos to drop his bags on the spare bed while Lloyd’s eyes narrowed into razor-sharp slits.

“Really, Zelos? You do this _every single time._ ”

His partner reclined backwards onto the bed, taming crimson hair with haphazard fingers. “You know I love you, Lloyd. I just-- I’m still a noble, and my entire life is still under scrutiny.” An exasperated sigh followed, allowing space to breathe and heads to rest. “And as much as I hate it-- _you and me both_ \-- you know I have a reputation.”

“ _You’re_ the one who said that wasn’t going to be a problem anymore.” The drop of Lloyd’s bags and his body laying claim to the left side of the bed marked more of an exasperated surrender than anything else. This was certainly not the first time they’d had this conversation, and it never seemed to get any easier, either _._ “We’ve been together for well over a year, Zelos. It’s starting to feel like you’re ashamed of me or something.”

“Never. Absolutely never.” Zelos leaned in close, savouring the comfort of skin against skin. The moment their bodies touched, he wrapped an arm around Lloyd and closed the distance between them. “I just… still have some trouble with this whole thing, that’s all.”

Lloyd’s frown returned as quickly as it had dissipated. “What, you mean with _me?_ ”

“No, no-- I just mean I’ve never really committed to anyone before. It’s not you, it’s… relationships, really.”

In return, Lloyd only smirked. “Well, sounds like somebody didn’t hate being the chosen as much as they thought they did, then.”

“Problem is, for the first time in my life, I'm happy, but now I don’t know how to be anything _but_ the chosen.” Zelos reached to extinguish the lamp to his right before burrowing his cheek into the nape of Lloyd’s neck. “Everything’s just so much _easier_ when it’s only the two of us.”

Lloyd quickly decided he could stand to argue later, instead opting to rest for the night. “Well, it’s just the two of us right now, and when we leave tomorrow, it will be again. Let’s get some sleep, okay?”

“Sure thing.” Another kiss was all he needed to say goodnight in hushed darkness. “I love you, Lloyd,” he breathed, and no word of it had been a lie.

One thing Zelos had always known, however, was that happiness was a precarious system created of a delicate scale, or perhaps the edge of a blade pointed at an artery in the neck; a single wrong move with fumbled hands meant that the entire system crashed and reset itself back to baseline, whatever that meant anymore. 

All he could say for certain was that every day, he went to bed happy until the moment he shut his eyes.

  
  
  


[year 4057 of the Tethe’allan calendar] 

_(Aslan Wilder, Chosen of Tethe’alla XVI_ , 

_descended into peace by means of his own hands.)_

_"I heard that Lady Mylene never attended the Chosen's funeral."_

_"A shame, really."_

In truth, it was _vile,_ leaving her only son and his bastard sister to cry alongside their father’s casket that rotted in the rain, identical to the way their father’s body did only days prior. Sebastian, fateful butler of the ice palace, was the only comfort to be found among unfamiliar faces and looks of pity wringing from the crowd; the sixteenth chosen of Tethe’alla, preparing to be buried sixteen feet underground, yet so few even knew his name beyond the word _Chosen,_ a title he allowed to consume him down to his very heart, soul, and identity.

_(There was little more to him to begin with;_

_A failed chosen and an even worse father.)_

Mylene had been an honest woman once, a pretty little uncomplicated, unbroken girl of noble birthright who wore her heart on her sleeve and hand-picked flowers in her hair. Innocent to the day the church wrapped their holy binds around her wrists and declared her the chosen Mother-- _surely,_ such would make a liar out of anyone. 

One day she knew she’d be buried in a grave only arm's length from that of the Chosen, far closer than even the separate beds they slept in each night. Even the mere thought of such made her want to _vomit._ It seemed the easiest way to mock someone to the core of their existence was to strip them of anything resembling free will under the guise of destiny.

Mother and Father knew how to cut through skin and bone using nothing more than their words, each sentence a series of frigid scalpels rather than anything that could pierce or burn. Zelos had learned to hate the winter long before Mylene’s already-cold blood tarnished the snow, as every clause flayed like a slaughtered animal with ice that only froze both of their insides further. 

_(Some people truly live only to have their happiness_

_stripped away from them until nothing remains,_

_and others only to breed the blonde hair, thin features,_

_and fragile heart back into the chosen lineage;_

_lying awake in the dead of night, Zelos wonders if eventually his_

_own heart would freeze over completely, just as his parents’ did.)_

“Mother! Can we pick flowers from the garden today?”

_(forever her favourite pastime, even if only for the_

_satisfaction of destroying something beautiful--)_

“Sebastian, please remove this child from my sight.”

_(and oftentimes, she wouldn’t even speak his name even with her_

_body splayed out against the snow, stained the colour of roses.)_

As cold, trembling hands gripped Zelos’ cheek and the blood on her fingertips snaked to his chin, she whispered the six words that never stopped ringing in his ears. A piece of him died alongside his mother, and each daybreak made him even less of an honest man, much as every rising sun did to her; after all, the only day Mylene was ever honest with her own son was the day she died, and the only genuine words she ever spoke were on her deathbed.

In the end, there was no such thing as a bitter truth when he knew as well as she did that 

_he should_

_never have_

_been born._

Pain, blood, and her body was on top of him all over again.

  
  
  


Instantaneous was the shock of searing electricity coursing through Zelos’ veins-- every jolt began in his chest and snaked down into the palms of his hands, burdened with the viscera of ghosts he hadn’t seen in twelve years. Instead, his fingertips tore into the silken sheets below as he convulsed awake in no more than a few damned blinks of the eye. Nothing but the pressure of blunted nails in the heat of his grasp reminded him he was still twenty-four and not simply caught in a feedback loop of all his worst memories.

 _“Zelos!”_ Lloyd cried, waking only moments after Zelos did with a raspy, hoarse voice the moment he opened his mouth. “Are you okay!? What’s wrong?”

The redhead gave no response, save for trembling hands migrating to his ears, tugging on each strand of hair that had fallen from the messy bun he’d thrown them in the night before. By now, Zelos’ normally gleaming eyes had turned glassy and his gaze was all but empty, making one thing abundantly clear: he had retreated into the depths of his own head, seeking comfort in the same places he feared.

“You had another nightmare, didn’t you?” The shivering boy nodded-- subtle proof that part of him was still anchored to the present. Lloyd placed a hand on Zelos’ back and pulled him closer, each of his touches gentle as they always were as he wrapped both arms around his shaking partner. 

The brunette’s finger trailed along the veins and speckles of tiny scars littering Zelos’ bicep. “I’m here, and you’re safe, Zelos.”

At last, Zelos caught his breath as if sputtering crimson blood to the sheets below. “Lloyd, they’re getting worse. Like I’m actually there again.”

“It’s going to be okay,” his lips brushed against Zelos’ cheek-- “I’m not going anywhere, no matter what.”

Zelos reclined against the bed frame behind them, feeling the wood grain probe the base of his neck as each sensation grounded him further back into reality. “Thanks, love. I know I’m not always the best partner, and that’s on me… but I love you, and I’m trying, and I don’t want you to forget that.”

“Well, I mean, you ripped the sheets, and they’ll probably charge us extra for that. But that’s no big deal compared to making sure you’re okay.” Lloyd laughed, little more than a soft, airy chuckle with breath warm against Zelos’ neck. “I’ve got you. I’m here.”

“Heh.” Zelos exhaled the last of his anxieties, allowing himself to breathe with ease once more. “What’d I ever do to deserve you, Lloyd?”

“Wish I could tell ya. How about you just agree to stay with me too, and we’ll call it even?” His finger traced from the redhead’s shoulder, trailing along lavender veins and satin skin, dragging to Zelos’ forearm before his fingernail scraped against an unfamiliar texture; smooth, yet firm and tough, grating against the skin of his fingers and grinding down against each nail.

_“...Huh?”_

Lloyd stopped for a split second, pensive with brows folded. By now, he knew every inch of Zelos’ body-- he could have mapped out every single freckle like a constellation of stars if he so chose; the disruption of an all-too-familiar system concerned him. The moment Lloyd’s eyes turned downward, his stomach flipped and leapt to join his heart in his trachea.

“Zelos, what’s this?” the brunette finally asked, running a finger over a sparkling turquoise gem protruding from his partner’s arm. He’d seen this before; they _both_ had, but never on _him._

The last thing Zelos wanted was to look down and feast his eyes upon whatever crisis made Lloyd choke out each word as if suffocating him, but he knew ignorant bliss would get him nowhere, except perhaps sixteen feet underground to meet his father once more. _No thank you,_ he thought. Few would have blamed him.

The moment he looked upon his left forearm and saw a jagged, aquamarine crystal staring back at him was the same moment his eyes grew bloodshot and something in his chest shattered.

“Oh, _shit._ ”

//

“See you guys after class, okay? I’m going back to my dorm for a bit.”

As Genis clutched textbooks and notepads brimming with half-scrawled reports between his arms, he couldn’t help but feel that something in his life was going _right_ for once. Here he was, studying at the academy of his dreams in a united world that was slowly, but certainly learning from its mistakes; to someone who had become so disenchanted he sought to join Mithos Yggdrasill himself only a mere year-and-a-half ago, it nearly came as a shock that Aselia had seemed to change so quickly.

For the first few months, he would admit that it _had_ been a shock; between the two former heroes, two whom had each wielded the Eternal Sword four-thousand years apart, the most glaring difference between Genis and Mithos was the fact that Genis had a pure heart and was still capable of _hoping._

Mithos’ mere existence was proof alone that hope was a terrible thing to lose.

Genis’ shoes tapped against the halls of the Palmacosta Academy, somewhere he could hardly dream of attending a year ago, even with scores on the admissions exam the school had never seen before. A teenage boy wise beyond his years, a genius in his own right--

_‘I suppose I’ll say I’m surprised too, then.’_

The half-elf shot a quick glance to his left, a flurry of familiar blonde hair hovering over his shoulder. He paid the apparition no mind; for someone who could solve formulas that made even the most difficult equations look simple, he knew very little of how to live with the feeling of grief and loss forever sinking in the pit of his stomach.

Upon reaching the freshmen wing of the dormitories, Genis threw open his door before letting the book in his hands fall to his desk, his body sprawled across a single bed in the corner of the room.

“Mithos, the world really is changing, you know.”

Genis shoved his hand haphazardly into his pocket, running his thumb along the stone that dwelled there. “When I was on the journey with Lloyd and Zelos, a year and a half ago, tops-- this school had a strict no half-elves policy.”

He stared at the edge of his bed, where his fellow half-elf sat with a pensive smile. _‘You’ll have to forgive me for being apprehensive, then. When you’ve been alive since the ancient war in any capacity, one year seems like the blink of an eye.’_

By now, he had recognized how illogical it would seem to say he’s seeing ghosts; even in a world filled with magic and mana, Genis didn’t believe in spirits until one stared him in the face, just as it did now.

“I guess now that the worlds have been reunited, everyone’s starting to realize we’re more alike than we are different.”

 _‘It’s strange, really, the amount of progress that’s been made since the worlds were reunited. There must be some sort of variable I’d never accounted for.’_ Mithos reclined, his back pressed against the rigid wall with loose posture, as if in the presence of an old friend. In a way, he was. _‘I’d never imagined that the world could look like this.’_

Genis sighed, balling the hand that clutched the tiny stone into a fist and placing it gently in his lap. “I just wish you could be here to experience it with me, though. The kind of world that we both always wanted to see.”

_‘You know I’ll be here, Genis-- so long as you want me here.’_

The moment Mithos spoke those words, Genis’ eyes darted upwards only to see the other boy was gone, disappeared alongside the wash of comfort and warmth the great _Mithos Yggdrasill_ could spark in nobody but him.

And _Goddess--_ a Goddess he knew wasn’t real, who had never been real no matter how much he prayed, but he would have without second thought if he knew she’d grant this _one, single wish_ \-- did he want Mithos here.

Genis picked up the stone once more, eyes flickering down at the emerald shard. In the palm of his hand was none other than a fragment of Mithos’ Cruxis crystal.

//

A single Rheaird touched ground at the edge of the Iselia treeline, shielding Lloyd and Zelos from the incoming downpour that threatened to fall through their cross-continental joyride. Zelos could really have done without the slow trickles of raindrops dotting his skin when his mind was already spinning in circles; he hated rain nearly as much as he hated the snow, forever a reminder of the day he was thrust into his father’s world, stripped of his name and instead called _seventeenth Chosen of Tethe’alla_ by everyone he encountered. It rained the day of his father’s funeral and it rained the day of his death. If Zelos could have his way, there would be nothing but sunshine or gray skies forever.

Today, the very day he discovered a hellish crystal protruding from his arm, he had no such luck, for there was _rain._

“You think Altessa’s gonna help us again?” Zelos asked, taking cover under the treeline and trying to remind himself that he didn’t have to fake it right now. When it was just him and Lloyd, he could be as scared or as vulnerable as he so chose, and even when he wasn’t, Lloyd was so damned _perceptive_ he generally figured it out anyways.

“Why wouldn’t he? I mean, he helped us before.” The brunette grabbed Zelos by the hand, dragging him close and pressing the warmth of their palms together. In spite of everything else, they were still a perfect fit. “And I’ve saved you once before too, Zelos. I’ll do it again, no matter what.”

“Damn, how broken am I, really?” Zelos laughed, sarcastic and sincere in the same breath. “And here I thought that for once, you wouldn’t _have_ to save me.”

Lloyd turned his gaze from the forest to his partner, whose eyes were ensnared firmly within the ground below. “Well, I mean, that’s what you do with broken things, right? You fix them.”

Uncomplicated logic, really, but as Zelos took his free hand and used his glove to wipe the raindrops from his face, he couldn’t seem to apply it to himself.

“Well, here we go. Made it.” Three quick knocks on the door echoed down to the wooden frame. Altessa’s cottage in the Iselian forests held countless memories of sleepless nights, culminating with the first touch of skin-to-skin in Zelos’ entire life that he hadn’t immediately regretted. Coming back nearly felt like coming home.

The moment the door swung open with a gust of wind and the warm scent of earth, Presea’s eyes widened. “Lloyd, Zelos. Welcome back, travelers.” Zelos knew that she was trying not to let the word _chosen_ slip; six quick letters that lingered like ghosts in the snow. He could always tell when people were holding their breath trying not to speak it.

“Hey, is Altessa around? We’ve got something to talk to him about.” The two boys stepped inside in time for the rain to turn torrential. For once, the _make-believe Goddess_ had smiled upon them.

Presea guided Lloyd and Zelos to the dwarf’s workshop where he sat patiently, as if forever awaiting their arrival. “Chosen one,” he began; Zelos winced. It seemed even in a world without the chosen system, its string of fate was still wrapped tightly around his neck. “What brings you here?”

“Woke up with something I’ve never seen before stuck to my arm. It looks just like an exsphere of some sort. Was hoping you could tell me what it was.” Zelos rolled down the fabric of his glove until it snagged against the tiny crystal in the middle of his forearm, drawing a harsh line between the soft skin of his inner elbow and the scar stretched jagged across his wrist. “Even tried pulling it off, but it won’t budge.”

Altessa took Zelos’ arm between rough hands, poking and prodding as if an animal under a microscope being jabbed from every angle. Even the dwarf dug his fingernails and tried to pry the single gem from his skin, only causing Zelos to recoil and the crystal to stay entrapped within the flesh and veins of his arm.

“I see.” Altessa leaned back in his chair. “You should never have kept your Cruxis crystal, chosen.”

Lloyd blinked as he spoke before Zelos could. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Chronic Angelus Crystallus Inofficium. You may be familiar with the disease under the name Angel Toxicosis.” The answer Zelos expected, yet hoped would never ring through his ears. “Unfortunately, those of the mana lineage are prone to it, and if uncured, it will spread to the organs and take your life.”

“So what do we _do_ then!?” Lloyd’s shaking hands balled into fists; Zelos stayed silent.

“There is a cure, and should you bring me the materials, I will craft it for you.”

“What do we have to do?” Zelos’ eyelids drooped while his lips remained a thin, flat line, much as his tone did to match. He had certainly grown tired of hearing all the ways he was cursed to die by virtue of being born.

“A Rune crest. I will craft it for you, but you mustn’t touch your Cruxis crystal until the crest has been equipped. Once your illness is cured, you _must_ remove the crystal.”

“Then we’ll _do it._ ” Lloyd’s voice reverberated through the room with a strength and fury Zelos nearly thought impossible. Nothing but saving the life of the one he loved could have brought out the searing determination he felt-- strong enough to rend the both of them combined.

After all, there may be a cure for Zelos’ illness, but there was no cure for his cursed blood.

  
  


Zelos had spent many days in his own head and even more trying to get out of it, whether through nights spent drinking at aristocrats’ cocktail parties or relishing the feeling of another warm body against his own. Everything was different now, and he couldn’t tell you what changed. Ever since the nightmares became so vivid he’d wake up in a haze, it seemed somehow, Zelos had found the only part of his mind he felt safe in at all-- somewhere that made the rest of the world drop dead quiet. The flick of a switch and the lights go dim until there’s nothing left, save for the shell nobody but Lloyd could differentiate from the real thing.

Kill the lights, then kill everything else, too.

“ _Zelos._ Hey.”

He stopped walking--when had he _started?_ \--to find himself with his arm linked to Lloyd’s at the elbow, in a forest he hadn’t laid eyes on in what had to have been over a year. It was different from the Iselian forests where Altessa’s was in ways he couldn’t place; they had certainly traveled far in a short period of time. Or, perhaps they hadn’t, and perhaps it wasn’t even a short time frame at all. He couldn’t have told you at this point.

Lloyd brushed a hand against the side of Zelos’ face, pressing their foreheads together in a gentle display of intimacy. A sharp tug back to reality. “You spaced out again.”

“Sorry, babe. Seems like it keeps happening at the worst times.” He smiled at the comfort of Lloyd’s touch, a gentle grasp that reached into the depths of Zelos’ mind and fumbled with each and every switch he’d shut off of his own volition.

“You remember what Altessa said, right?”

Not a word of it beyond Angel Toxicosis, really, but whether there had been anything after in the first place was beyond him. “Give me the short version.”

“He told us the materials we need to make the Rune crest and where to find them. Right now, we’re on our way to Heimdall to get permission from the Elder to get the Mana Leaf Herb.”

Zelos stopped, looking from side to side. “That explains that. I recognize the forest.”

“It always worries me when you zone out like that, you know. Are you okay?” Clearly, between the overwhelming night terrors and newfound diagnosis of a terminal disease, _‘okay’_ was as far off as his mother’s body was buried underground. Still, Lloyd _knew_ that, and Zelos knew that he did, so lying was out of the question.

“Guess I’m just getting tired of all the reminders of the ways I'm cursed to die.” A quick squeeze of Zelos’ hand, and they continued through the Ymir pathways, feet pattering against the docks below; there was little more to say in the same way Zelos knew he couldn’t cry even if he wanted to. By now, he’d much rather retreat into that safe place in the back of his mind where the only thing that could hurt him was himself. At least that, much unlike the crystal on his arm, or the taste of iron from grinding his teeth into his lower lip on those sleepless nights, was a pain he could manage.

“Alright. We’re almost at the Elder’s house.” Walking through the forest felt like it’d passed in the blink of an eye. Maybe in the end, Zelos had dissociated again. On the days the nightmares came, sometimes he felt like he was gone more than he wasn’t.

Zelos relinquished his grip on Lloyd’s hand, instead running his fingers along the unfamiliar crystal on his arm, knowing that one day, it may very well kill him. “Is it alright if I let you do the talking here? I’m a little spent.”

“Yeah, don’t worry. I’ve got it from here.” Lloyd _knock-knocked_ against the doorframe, and Zelos shut his mouth in perfect tune with it swaying open.

“Chosen one.” The distaste splayed upon the Elder’s face matched the loathing on Zelos’ own. “I’m afraid you’ve caught me during a meeting with one of your former companions.”

“Please, Elder! We need your help.” Lloyd’s hands balled into fists the moment he looked the Elder in the eyes. “We--”

A voice from further back in the throes of the cabin-- female, gentle, yet unrelenting in nature. “Let them in. We can postpone our discussion to a later date if necessary.”

The elder glanced over his shoulder and moved to reveal none other than Raine Sage, perched atop a simple chair in the kitchen-turned-makeshift-boardroom. Not that Heimdall could have a more suitable location for a conference between the ruler of elves and Aselia’s top ambassador for half-elven relations. “Let them in, Elder. I’d be interested in hearing what they have to say as well.”

“Then come, sit, travelers. Tell me what it is you need.” 

“You know of Angel Toxicosis, right?” Lloyd asked, furrowing his brows until they nearly touched.

“Chronic Angelus Crystallus Inofficium,” the Elder spoke without stumbling. “The illness of the mana lineage. Two of the heroes who ended the great Kharlan war and few Chosen throughout history are the only recorded cases of such a disease.”

“ _Zelos._ ” Raine’s composure dropped from true impartiality to a strained frown; she always had a knack for reading between the lines.

“We need a cure for this.” Zelos chose not to mince words, instead revealing his affliction with the flick of his wrist and a roll of his satin glove. The green crystal pulsating within Zelos’ arm possessed more shimmer than his eyes did by now, and as everyone in the room gazed upon its parasitic wonder, it only sucked the shine from theirs too.

“I see. What is it you request of me, then?” The Elder crossed his arms against his chest, as if deep in thought. “The last time such a diagnosis was made mustn’t have been less than a century ago.”

“Latheon Gorge is still closed to anyone without your permission. We need to go there to get the Mana Leaf Herb for a Rune crest.” Lloyd spoke with a sense of conviction and promise to fight; any such promise proved unnecessary.

“Very well, then. I will write you a letter, and then you may be on your way.”

“Really?” Lloyd stopped, a quick pause to breathe-- “I thought it was going to be way harder to convince you than that.”

“That’s what our meeting pertains to, actually.” Raine turned to examine the gem on Zelos’ arm out of curiosity, above all else, and he felt like an animal under a microscope _now_ more than ever. “We were in discussion of opening Heimdall’s services to outsiders and lifting restrictions on half-elven visitors.”

Lloyd’s smile returned, even if no more than a subtle grin. “Wow. That’s a big change for Heimdall.”

“The rift between elves and half-elves is a chasm that runs deep, but if the rest of the world is beginning to change its ways, then perhaps it is in our best interest to follow suit.” The Elder turned his glance to Raine, whom Zelos had long since swatted away by now, his eyes heavy. “Even now, I would certainly not associate with such a _half-elf_ unless we had a _common goal_ in mind.”

“Oh, come on.” Zelos snatched the hand-written note from the Elder, feeling the parchment crunch beneath his fingers. “If you’re really trying to change your ways, then you can try a little harder than that.”

Raine returned to her seat as a soft smirk crawled across her face. “And here I thought you hated half-elves, Zelos. Impressive.”

“Goes to show that if I can learn, so can everyone else.” Zelos had far too much more to worry about than some idle back-and-forth quips; he grasped Lloyd’s hand, nearly dragging him to the door with the conviction of someone with little choice left between life and death.

The moment he shut the door behind him, Zelos reached into the back of his mind and shut the lights out with it.

//

Genis had lived alongside Mithos’ ghost in the reunited world for a year now. 

One year was hardly much longer than he’d spent on the chosen’s journey beforehand, and nearly three times as long as he’d known Mithos before picking a shard of his Cruxis crystal from the ground, shattered the same way his heart had been the moment Lloyd said _Mithos is dead._ One year was enough time for Genis to grow nearly as tall as his sister, for the scar on his abdomen to turn from red, to pink, and finally to white, for Genis to think, and hope, and cry, and _love._

Above all else, somehow, it was enough time to change the world into something he didn’t despise.

Silver hair flitted across Genis’ vision as he sat by the ocean, eyes rippling through Palmacosta’s canals that sparkled in the afternoon sun. He let his feet drop below the docks and barely graze the water, his favourite spot to talk to Mithos without intrusion, much less without having to worry about being treated as though he’d lost his mind by people who couldn’t see the phantom by his side. The wind grazing gently across his face, the crystalline glimmer of the water, and the near-foreign feeling of solitude-- it was beautiful, really, just as it was the day he came here for the very first time.

_‘You know, during the ancient war, this city wouldn’t even let me and Martel sleep in the streets.’_

Genis glanced to his left to find Mithos had accompanied him with lips pursed and legs crossed. “Well, look at it now, right? I know Raine and a lot of my old companions on the journey are working to make some structural changes, too.”

Mithos rested his palms on his knees, joining Genis in staring into the sea. _‘I see.’_

“That’s all you have to say?”

_‘What more do you want me to say?’_

“I--” Genis felt nothing but his heartbeat thumping in his chest, and at the rate each throb rang rhythmic through his ears, he wouldn’t be surprised if Mithos could feel it too. “Sorry. I guess I don’t know what to say either.”

_‘Do you want me to go, then?’_

“No, I don’t.” He stopped, shaking his head as he ran his fingers through silken hair. “When did everything go wrong, Mithos?”

 _‘When did what go wrong, exactly?’_ he asked in return, emotionless as a blank slate. Genis could always tell he’d hit some sort of nerve the moment Mithos’ voice transformed from a simple song to a barren elegy.

“You, the world... I don’t know. When did it stop being about wanting to save everyone?”

_‘Genis, it was always wrong. Always. You haven’t seen the things I have.’_

“But you’ve also spent a year living in the reunited world, here, with me. You’ve been here while I’ve enrolled in an academy that wouldn’t even consider admitting a half-elf. You were there before that while I was with my sister, acting as an ambassador for half-elf liberation, advocating for our cause. You’ve seen the way people treat me, you’ve seen how they talk about half-elves. Do you regret anything now that you’ve seen that this is possible?”

The edges of Mithos’ mouth dropped into a quick frown, sharp enough to slice through bone. _‘Do_ you _regret anything, Genis?’_

“You’re dodging the question, Mithos.” To this day, Genis was the only person Mithos would ever allow to talk to him like that, whether out of a true fondness for the boy or simply because Cruxis' former leader was simply so weary, there was no more poison left to spit.

_‘I don’t know if I'll ever have an answer to that. But I do know that there are things I may have done differently if I knew the world could become so peaceful so quickly.’_

“A kind of world you’d want to live a life of your own in?” Genis glanced over his shoulder at the apparition to his left, visible to his eyes alone. “With me, maybe?”

 _‘A kind of world I’d want_ Martel _to live a life of her own in.’_

“Well, I mean, wishful thinking, of course,” The silver-haired boy paused, crossing his legs to meet Mithos’ posture, “What if there were a way for us all to live in the united world, together?”

 _‘I’d call it just that, wishful thinking.’_ Mithos stood without a trace of sound, _‘I’d say it’s best I leave you to your own devices for now.’_

“No, wait!” Genis called, his hand passing directly through the boy’s forearm as if to call his personal phantom back, begging for him not to leave. “Please, Mithos. Stay. Come on, the canals are gorgeous right now. Let’s watch them for a bit, okay?”

And then the other boy stopped in his tracks and sucked in a quick breath, everything save for imaginary in the afternoon-turned-evening sky. Both of his heels were near- transparent against the docks as he turned, taking a seat next to Genis once more.

Mithos stayed.

//

Footsteps pattered through packed dirt and trails laced with twigs, each subtle crunch echoing through the air and sending shivers through Lloyd’s bones. Zelos felt every tremble vibrate in his own, but he couldn't have cared less.

_You should--_

“Zelos?”

Suddenly, there he was again, a living, breathing human being once more with hands that could touch and eyes that could see. The moment reality crashed down around him, Lloyd squeezed his hand tight enough Zelos would be shocked if Lloyd couldn’t feel his rapid _tick-ticking_ heartbeat in his palm. If he did, it was sheer dumb luck Lloyd didn’t say anything.

_\--never have--_

“You okay?” he asked instead, and Zelos accepted that luck for what it was. He was fine and he knew it, fine enough to find the Mana Leaf Herb hidden somewhere in this gorge, then spend the night in Lloyd’s arms, only to pray he didn’t wake up with bloody lips and the taste of iron in his mouth from trying not to scream.

He was okay until he wasn’t anymore, simple as that.

_\--been born._

Now, as Mylene’s words ring in his ears, he _wasn’t._

“Y’know, babe, between those damn nightmares and finding out I have a terminal disease, truth be told, I’m not doing so hot right now.” Passably-honest words from a passably-honest man.

“It’s not going to be terminal.” Lloyd was determined, perhaps to a fault. “We’re gonna get you that Rune crest, and we’re gonna live a long and happy life together.”

“Sometimes I wonder why you stay with me, Lloyd. Honestly, I--” _I don’t deserve you,_ is what he would have said, but he knew Lloyd would have contested it to the point where Zelos would force himself to believe it. In retrospect, perhaps that wouldn’t have been so bad.

Lloyd gripped his hand tighter as they walked miles through the gorge. “Simple. I stay because I love you. If we could keep traveling together forever, I’d definitely be happy for the rest of my life.”

Still, despite those words being _exactly_ what he needed to hear, the redhead only found himself distracted by the rustling of leaves in the distance-- surely faint enough to be undetectable to those without angelic senses, yet the kind of _distinct_ noises that an animal wasn’t capable of.

“I love you too.” A kiss on the cheek, followed by Zelos’ gaze darting to the treeline and back again. “C’mon, we should really get going.” He tugged Lloyd’s hand behind him like a child dragging a toy in their wake, only to glance backwards with fear in his eyes. _Animals don’t cast shadows like that,_ he thought, only to scurry further down the dirt path and pretend everything was fine (a strength he possessed in _spades)._

“I think this is it,” Lloyd finally said as he picked a leaf from its stem; the moment he held it up to the light each stratum became transparent, save for the veins that snaked through the greenery. “Yeah, this is it for sure. That was what Altessa said to look for. A plant that disappears in the sunlight.”

Zelos sucked in a breath and exhaled a heavy sigh, straddling the line between relief and exasperation. “That’s one down. How many more to go now, hunny?”

Lloyd holds up a hand to count on his fingers; Zelos can’t help but smile. “Well, we’ve got the Mana Leaf Herb… now we need Zircon, a Mana Fragment, and Boltzmann’s healing technique.”

“So I guess we’re looking for Zircon next, then.”

A light flickered in Lloyd’s mind long enough to birth a viable idea. “How about we ask Regal about it? He knows all about the trading of that kind of stuff.”

“It’s as good an idea as any, I suppose. Now let’s get going, eh?” The moment Zelos entwined his fingers with those of his partner, he glanced over his shoulder one last time before they continued on their way.

Someone or _something_ was following them, and animals don’t reek of dried blood.

//

“--Thank you, Martel.”

Sylvarant’s former chosen unclasped her hands, lifting her knees from the ground only to stand and bow before the church’s altar. Perhaps it was silly of her to still believe in Martel after all the world had been through, but despite the revelation that Martel had been anything but a Goddess, Colette still trusted in her power the same way children believed in Santa Claus, or those with hope pray for happy endings. Somehow, Colette felt Martel’s power in even the nerves of each of her fingertips, and every prayer filled her with light and love that nothing else could replace. 

Even in the reunited world, she had chosen to stay alongside the reformed Church of Martel, even if only to honour her great-grandmother, Spiritua, who nourished Sylvarant back to prosperity by sacrificing her life. In the end, when all was said and done, one born only as a pawn in Cruxis’ twisted games needed something to believe in.

Colette’s shoes tapped against the church’s stone floors, each footstep echoing like a distant memory into the room filled with nothing but an altar and a statue of the Goddess. Aselian churches were close to empty in this day and age, save for the anniversary of the world’s reunification and the odd holiday that sparked the belief that _maybe,_ Martel really was still out there. None of that was any bother to Colette; she knew what she believed in, and to her, that was enough. More than anything, she believed in a love for all people and the kind of self-determination that allowed them to choose their own ways, even if it meant the holy days began to see fewer and fewer prayers from the masses.

The moment Colette stepped outside, Palmacosta’s evening sunset warmed her skin and the stars began peeking through the clouds, casting light in place of every inch the sun dimmed. Beautiful, really; it never ceased to be such, but every sunrise and sunset had an entirely new charm in a new world.

Quickly, she took notice of a young man on the docks with silver hair nearly glowing in the starlight. He was alone, seated with hands cupped around his knees and a grin that was childish in nature-- above all else, he looked the kind of lonely that sat on the tip of the tongue like a silenced sob _(surely, a feeling she knew well as the former chosen of Sylvarant, born to carry on the mana lineage and be dragged like a lamb to slaughter should the world ever decline again)_. She was certain she’d seen him before, somewhere, anywhere; the surefire feeling churning in the pit of her stomach had never been wrong.

She took that feeling into the palm of her hands and gripped her fingers around it, sat with it, soaked it in, before she approached with a kind smile and a voice like honey.

“Hi there. Do you mind if I sit with you?”

Genis looked up from his perch, eyes widening the moment they locked with those of his visitor. “S-sure, I guess.” The moment she took a seat to his right and swayed her feet off the edge of the dock, he killed the silence once more. “I remember you. You were the chosen of Sylvarant.”

She grinned, all teeth. “Yes! I’m not the chosen anymore, though. Now, I just work for the church, and that’s good enough for me.” The pause that followed was long enough to be awkward at best. “You were one of the travelers I met, years ago. I saw you sitting by yourself and thought you looked lonely, like you could use a friend.”

“Well… I guess so.” Genis glanced to Mithos at his left, the boy silent and invisible to all but him. “I’m pretty new to Palmacosta. I don’t really have a lot of people to talk to.”

“Do you mind if I ask who you were talking to before I sat with you?”

Genis froze, then _laughed._

“Would you believe me if I told you I was talking to Mithos, the hero?” he said, feigning sarcastic while fully sincere.

“I would believe you. I talk to the Goddess, too, whether she’s really out there or not.” Colette folded her hands across her lap with the grace expected of an ex-deity turned high priestess. “It still gives me hope to think that she is. Sometimes, I still wish she would talk back, honestly.”

“I’m glad I’m not the only one, then.”

 _‘Only difference is, I’m actually talking to you.’_ Genis shot a glance in Mithos’ direction, only to find him smirking a single-sided grin.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having hope, though. Believing in something gives you the strength to keep going forward.” Colette’s optimism was heartening, if not naive.

Her smile was the sweetest contagion imaginable, and Genis felt it tug at the corners of his mouth. “Heh. Yeah. What’s your name again, by the way?”

“My name is Colette. And you are?” 

“Genis. Genis Sage. I go to school at the Palmacosta Academy.” He shoved his hands into his pockets before watching Mithos turn to leave-- his signal to leave, too, in harmony with the sun dipping below the horizon. “I should really be heading back now. Thanks for coming to sit with me, Colette.”

“No problem! It was so nice to talk to you, Genis.” She extended a hand to help him onto his feet, a touch that was as warm and inviting as her very aura itself. “Would you like me to walk you back to the academy?”

“No, I'm okay. Thanks, though.” The half-elf shrugged before bidding adieu and walking away, alone.

Mithos had left, retreated back into the shard of his Cruxis crystal where his consciousness made a home, then left Genis as alone as he could be while haunted by his own personal poltergeist. The haunting was nostalgic, based in the parts of his mind he knew he’d never get closure from otherwise, and he kept telling his bitter heart the only thing he knew to be the truth: the Mithos Yggdrasill was dead, and he was _never coming back._

On his short walk home he did such, running his thumb over every intricacy that he’d memorized with care and clutching it until it pierced through skin. How he longed for Mithos in any capacity; the sharp pain in his palm was enough to keep the _loss_ and _grief_ and _guilt_ and _every other terrible feeling_ from consuming him but never enough to leave him satisfied. A touch, a tease, a _voice,_ but never a graze of skin to skin. 

His musings had completely engulfed him until he could feel nothing but the gem in his hand and the coastline winds tossing his hair back and forth. By now, he was so consumed by his own thoughts, he neglected to realize he had a visitor until it was far too late.

The moment he approached the academy he stopped, the air of an unfamiliar presence now so strong it made every hair on his body stand on end-- whoever it could be, they were almost certainly here for him, as there was no one else in sight. Here he was, alone, unarmed, and he couldn’t even cry for Mithos’ ghost to save him.

“I would like a word with you, half-elf.”

The voice, that of a woman, middle-aged at most, only sparked more fear in Genis’ already-quaking body, and at that point, he had no idea whether to turn around or to _run_ as _fast as his legs would carry him_.

Whoever it was, she knew of his blood, and that was reason enough to flee. “Tell me who you are, then,” he said back with every effort not to let his voice waver.

“I have an offer for you, should you turn and face me.” The voice boomed in darkness, until finally, Genis drew his hand from the doorknob and spun on his heels to face the mysterious visitor at last. All the hope in the world couldn’t describe his pleas that this decision wouldn’t cost him his life.

A woman, with thin facial features and hair the colour of the sea, garbed in shades of red and black. Genis certainly couldn’t deny her beauty, but it paled in comparison to the sheer terror of locking eyes with her and wondering if looks could kill.

“My name is Pronyma. I know what you have. Join me, and Lord Yggdrasill will rise once more.”

Genis tightened the grip around the stone in his palm, and above all else, he wondered if he made the wrong choice; _should have ran,_ he thought, but such an offer could only have been a dream. She stared into his eyes and he stumbled, tripping over his own feet without a single care where he was going. All he knew was that he needed to get away.

Pronyma smiled, and she smelled like iron.


	2. Obedience

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is best viewed on a desktop because as some you guys must know by now i’m the weird formatting queen with my prose. However, reading on mobile will not take away from the experience.

“Do you want the war that comes  
with this skin? Well, come here, then.”

\- Shauna Barbosa

//

It had started with a single crystal. Nothing more than a jagged blemish along pale skin, and it would hardly be more noticeable than the scars that dotted his arm if not for the texture that snagged to the touch. One was enough-- a curse, another failure of his own blood-- an eternal reminder that the one thing he could never run from was himself.

That day, the moment Zelos woke from restless slumber and stared down at his arm, there were two.

His nails scraped against the gem’s sharp edges, staring back up at him like the eyes of a cobra lingering beneath his skin and seeping poison into his veins. He liked the look of concern strewn across Lloyd’s face even less; Zelos knew it only made both their hearts break further, looking back with a gaze that spoke _‘don’t pity me, I love you’_ because he couldn’t bring himself to put it into words.

“C’mon, hunny, let’s go,” Zelos said as he grabbed Lloyd by the wrist, leading him out of bed and off into the wide open world for the next phase of their journey.

Lloyd made a noise reminiscent of a tap against the roof of his mouth, following where Zelos led: Altamira, to meet their former companion and cure the accursed disease. Contrary to Zelos’ paranoia and self-doubt, as Lloyd’s eyes darted to the ground, they had never once looked of pity.

They looked of pain, and beyond that, _fear._

//

Genis’ eyes flickered back and forth, never once landing in one spot long enough to rest; class was passing by in an agonizingly slow fashion, and _hell_ if he could concentrate at all. Every passing moment brought him back to night before, where he was bound by one with evil eyes, standing cornered and scared like a trapped animal.

Really, that hadn’t been far from the truth.

Pronyma had given him an ultimatum. Genis was to either accompany her in the plot to revive Mithos Yggdrasill, or she would take the crystal from him by force, and then take his life the moment she held the shard in her hands. He had twenty-four hours to make a choice, or she would choose the latter _for him._

He drummed the end of his pencil against his desk, each single tap ringing in his ears loud enough to drown out the voice of his professor _(as if he could pay attention right now, anyways)._ The notebooks splayed in front of him remained blank. Surely, if Pronyma wanted Mithos back and the whole thing was more than a fever dream, there were two things of which he could be certain: that whoever she was and whatever her goals, their interests aligned-- and beyond that, that she _could not_ be trusted under _any_ circumstances.

Class broke, and a flurry of footsteps snapped him from his trance until he returned to the present with shaky hands and a mouth that tasted of bile. Pronyma’s offer had backed him into a corner, clutching desperately to that tiny shard until it pierced through skin. He was to join her, or fight back and die trying. He’d chosen a third option instead, created of his own bloodied palm: he had decided to do what he did best and _negotiate._

Even still, as he proceeded to their foreordained meeting, Genis pursed his lips and couldn’t help but ask himself-- _what do I want, anyways?_

 _‘So what will you do, then, Genis?’_ Mithos echoed, smooth words strung together like a braid of smug satisfaction. Funny, considering this pertained to _him_ more than it did either Genis _or_ his mysterious foe.

Genis reached upwards before resting his hands against the nape of his neck. “I think the real question here is _‘what do_ you _want me to do’_ , Mithos.”

 _‘My consciousness only exists in the piece of my Cruxis crystal you own. If you don’t choose to join her, eventually, I'll disappear entirely. I don’t think you want that.’_

Genis didn’t; he wanted it just as much as he wanted the world to end or for he himself to disappear without a trace. “But do _you_ want that?”

_‘I’ve lived a life longer than most, and all things are fated to die eventually. Should you accept her offer, all I ask is that you find a way for Martel to live alongside me.’_

“Then I will.” Genis came to an abrupt halt once he reached the docks-- precisely where he said he would be, down to the very inch. “Alongside _us._ ”

It took little more time for Pronyma to arrive than it did for Genis to paint a strong face and pretend her very presence didn’t make his blood run cold.

“Have you made your decision, boy?” she asked, her words sharp enough to split the world back in two.

“I think our goals might be the same, but I need to know what you plan to do before I say yes or no.”

“The chosen has the closest mana signature to Lord Yggdrasill, but his body remains useless as it is now. Alas, we need not despair.” A slither of her silver tongue-- “The chosen has a _sister.”_

Genis’ flatline lips curve downwards. “This again? I thought that didn’t even _work._ ”

“It has, twice. Once, with Yggdrasill, two thousand years ago. Once, with the chosen Spiritua, whose body managed to fuse with the goddess Martel, until she rejected the vessel and carried on her lifeless existence within the Great Seed.”

“I’m not fourteen anymore. I don’t want to sacrifice anyone.” Genis balled his fists; he could do little else. “There has to be another way.”

Pronyma all but laughed. “We’re talking about reviving lifeless beings, boy. _Lifeless beings_ require _vessels.”_

“I’ll tell you what.” Genis’ heart beat faster with every breath he took. “You try to carry out whatever plans you have, and I look for my own way. We go our separate ways, and if what you’re trying to do works first, I’ll give you the crystal.”

Now, she _did_ laugh, and it only managed to send a cold shiver even further down his spine. “A reasonable negotiation. However, that shard in your hand is useless as it is now. If you plan to do anything with it, I suggest you research the lost art of creating Cruxis crystals. Do we have a _deal,_ then?”

Genis relaxed enough to breathe-- he’d hardly realized he was holding his breath to begin with. “I guess we’ve got a deal, then.”

A _deal_ is a _deal,_ and a deal had never made a lump swell in his throat until he feared he’d _suffocate_ until _this very day._

//

“I see.” 

A coarse silence ensued as Regal paused, one hand fiddling absentmindedly with the cuff on his suit jacket. “That’s quite the tale. And now you’re looking for a cure for this illness, correct?”

Lloyd nodded. “Yeah. We know what we have to do to get one. Altessa offered to help us again. It’s just a matter of gathering the parts for the new crest.”

The noble reclined back in his chair, lavish and fit for a king. “I would be happy to be of assistance, if you’d tell me how.”

“I’m assuming you know about the material Zircon,” Zelos began as rays of sunlight streamed through the window opposite the table, drawing the room in half. An uncomfortably formal setting, considering their history. “Lezareno has done plenty of trading of fine minerals in the past.”

“Of course.” Regal cupped a hand around his chin. “A mineral popular in the decorative ceramics industry. Widely used in foundry casting, as well.”

“Exactly.” Zelos tried desperately not to pay mind to the stiffness in his arm where the crystals stared back through cloth and flesh. “It’s one of the materials we need to make the Rune crest. You were the first to come to mind when Altessa suggested it.”

“In theory, the ore should still be held in the mines.”

“Can we go, then!?” Lloyd just scarcely raised his voice, far too enthusiastic for such a monotonous task. Even still, each step closer to the crafting of the crest was one step further from Zelos’ agonizing and untimely death.

“The mines have been closed since the worlds were reunited.” Lloyd and Zelos frowned in unison; Regal smirked. “However, since you came here and presented me with such a story, the closure doesn’t mean I can’t help you in.”

Lloyd’s dejection lifted, and Zelos’ frown turned to a straight line. “Can you come with us?”

Regal chuckled, the same way he always did when he had the answer sitting on the tip of his tongue. “For an old friend, absolutely.”

Zelos smiled, rising from the table and turning to leave with Regal at his side. Much as he always did, Lloyd followed in every step Zelos led, again, and again, and _again._

//

Genis stood on the outskirts of Palmacosta, his brows creased and enough fire in his veins to rival the Aselian sun. Each step he took echoed against the pavement and vibrated in his ears, a sensation rivalled only by the late afternoon wind grazing his face. There was one thing he was completely certain of, and one thing alone: he had absolutely, positively _no idea_ what to do.

_‘If you really insist on going through with this, at this rate, my consciousness will continue to fade.’_

Genis glanced over his shoulder to see Mithos standing at his side with fists balled to match his own. “What do you think of Pronyma’s plans, Mithos?”

The blonde frowned, sunbeam hair shielding pensive eyes. _‘The method works, and we know that.’_

“But-- we can do this without anyone having to die. I’m sure of it.” Genis frowned, and the subtle change of expression was nearly rendered undetectable to Mithos. At least, it _would be,_ if Mithos hadn’t spent a year by his side and in his head, watching Genis’ every move.

 _‘It seems you’re stuck between a_ rock _and a_ hard place, _then,’_ A single corner of Mithos’ mouth twisted to a grin. _‘Do you try to bring back the dead in a way you know for certain will be successful, or do you be a pacifist and risk failing?’_

Genis shook his head, silver hair flitting across his vision. “You did some bad things back then, Mithos. You do know that, right?”

_‘Bad things that you, at one point, agreed with.’_

“I--” The half-elf’s vision darted to the ground and sank only further into the soil. “I wanted to end discrimination, and you said we could do that together. I didn’t want to kill people.”

Mithos, instead, only gazed into the field, watching the trees gently scatter their leaves with each passing gust of wind. _‘I know I've done things I can likely never make up for. If you’re going to find me a body, then find one for Martel, too, who deserves it.’_

Genis’ eyes grew wide, and he broke his gaze from the lush grass. “What do I have to do, then?”

_‘To start, a shard alone isn’t enough to keep me alive, even in this capacity, and the art of crafting Cruxis crystals is long lost. I’m sure it still lives on in Origin’s memory, but believe me when I say there are other methods you can try before resorting to that.’_

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

 _‘Try to fuse the shard with an exsphere. You’d rather do that than make a Cruxis crystal.’_ His voice was as lifeless as his body, each limb a phantom of a fallen hero who now only stood as a wraith. _‘You could even use your own.’_

“I-- that’s true.” Genis paused with a breath hitched in his throat. A year in a reunited world, and the deep blue crystal still rested on the back of his right hand. _For research,_ he always said, in order to justify keeping it pressed tightly against his skin even after the king asked civilians to relinquish theirs.

But Genis wasn’t a civilian; he was a _researcher--_ or at least, that’s what he told himself and everyone else believed. It amplified his cognitive abilities, made his thoughts clearer, and sharpened his wit into a pointed blade he perched at his side at all times-- he’d sooner risk his gem being confiscated than to relinquish it of his own free will.

This fusion, however, was a viable option; one he’d no doubt sacrifice his heightened intelligence and skill for.

Genis took a seat in the grass, leaning his weight against the trunk of the tree that sheltered his body from the midday sun. “What would it take to combine my Cruxis crystal with yours?”

It took seconds for Mithos to lean next to Genis with a palm drifting to cover the gem on the back of his hand, feeling the crystal’s heartbeat in lieu of his own. The half-elves glanced at each other until their glassy eyes met, allowing themselves to stay locked in place for a moment alone. Soon, perhaps, Genis would really be able to feel Mithos’ fingertips resting against his, and that thought alone made every second of short, fast breaths of longing worthwhile.

 _‘You take this--’_ he said, lingering over the Cruxis crystal before drifting to the shard in Genis’ opposite hand, _‘and this-- and you give it your mana.’_

Genis removed his Cruxis crystal from the groove in its shimmering Key crest, balling his hand into a fist around the tiny gem and the emerald shard that matched it. The instructions seemed simple enough that even a child could understand; simple enough he could even have understood a year ago when he thought Mithos’ former ideals were absolute. _Ha--_ He nearly made himself laugh at the thought.

Still, the half-elf focused his energy, letting it ebb and flow through his veins like a gentle tide, until--

 _“Ahh!”_ Genis recoiled after a lightning-fast jolt of pain propagated in the palms of his hands, snaking its way up to his wrists and forearms until he released the stones and they toppled to the ground. A quick, sharp blowback of mana, if not an outright rejection. 

“It-- it didn’t work.”

_‘Your Cruxis crystal may not be compatible with mine.’_

“I know you said not to, but-- I could always look into creating a new Cruxis crystal, couldn’t I?” Genis flexed his fingers before letting them lie limp against his knees. He’d never performed any sort of healing magic before, much less attempted a transfer of mana; in a way, it almost felt like surgery, stitching together a piece and a whole with little fragments of himself.

He’d never imagined it being so _excruciating._

 _‘If you thought that was unbearable, creating a Cruxis crystal is ten times that pain. I suggest looking for an exsphere and trying again.’_ Silently, Mithos crossed his legs, and the boy and his phantom sat sullen in the afternoon air.

“Well, I think I know where I can get one of those,” Genis finally said before standing, one foot after the other, and returning his Cruxis crystal into the recess of the Key crest. The crunch of grass beneath his shoes could be heard far and wide throughout the field, the comfort of familiarity heavy on his mind as he thought of all the time he and Raine had spent running from city to city, hiding in alleyways and sleeping in bushes. He had his sister back then, someone to soothe his worries, an eternal figure of guidance, a Goddess in her own right. Now, he had a ghost of the only person who’d ever truly _understood_ him.

Genis looked behind him for Mithos’ shadow and only found he was alone again.

//

Between a cool breeze whipping against his cheeks, the sparkle of the sun hitting the afternoon tides, and Lloyd’s hand gripped tightly within his own, Zelos had found temporary peace. 

He’d never enjoyed traveling by sea, since Tethe’alla’s decline in mana meant the waters had become steadily more dangerous and magitechnology was growing obsolete; even on his newfound journey in a reunited world, he and Lloyd generally opted to travel by foot or Rheaird for convenience, anyways. Today, however, the travelers carried an extra companion among them, and their single Rheaird would certainly not take three. Instead, Regal had opted for only the finest ship sailed by the most qualified mariner to take them to and from the mines. Even considering his distaste for travel by boat, this was nothing short of luxury.

Regal’s return to nobility certainly carried some perks.

A strand of red hair whipped across Zelos’ face; he was certainly impressed by how much it’d grown in the last year after he’d shorn it so the tips teased his sharp collarbones. By now, it hung just below his shoulderblades, long enough to throw in a messy bun, much like the night before, and enough that the inexplicable flash of red across his vision caused a 

pull

and

tug

in

the

back

of

his

head

as he felt himself reach for the lights, only for his eyes to shift and blur until they focused once more on the one thing that could always, undoubtedly bring him back--

“Doesn’t the water look so nice from here, Zelos!?” Lloyd’s grin stretched from ear-to-ear until Zelos lost himself in the dimples of his partner’s reddened cheeks and the sparkle in his eyes that matched the sun. With a look like that, there was no way he couldn’t smile, too.

He slipped an arm around Lloyd’s waist, pulling him close and savouring the warmth of the other boy’s body against his. “I can name something I’d rather look at.”

A chuckle filled the air behind them, loud enough to be audible over the coalescence of wind and waves. “I see little has changed since our last encounter.”

Zelos and Lloyd looked over their respective shoulders in unison, their faces painted with varying degrees of surprise. Even disregarding the infinite number of times Lloyd made Zelos’ heart skip a beat, being caught in any sort of display of affection only made it leap and twist. He knew that, in practice alone, it was the same set of rhythm and motions he’d been practicing with nameless, faceless women since the moment word of his body count spread through the Tethe’allan streets. The difference was that this-- affection, desire, _love--_ was anything but rehearsed and _far more genuine_ than anything he’d ever show to the masses.

Honesty made his throat sear, and Lloyd had made him the most honest man he’d even been.

And still, he smiled, because after a split second of panic, he remembered gentle, softened moments like these among close friends were the last place he had to fake it. “Yo, Regal! Are we getting close? Feels like it’s been hours.”

“I can understand your impatience, given the circumstances. You’ll be pleased to know that we’re nearly there.” Regal rested his arms on the edge of the rails, gesturing to the hills that stood tall in the distance. “The seas have cleared since the worlds were reunited. Traveling is not only much safer, but quicker now, as well.”

“Aye, Duke Bryant. Thirty minutes to arrival at the port,” a voice boomed at their backs, loud enough even to be audible even over the billowing wind. Zelos and Regal shared little more than a quick glance in response.

“I believe there’s your answer, Zelos,” the noble said with as much pride as one would expect of a Duke, and nothing less; a stark contrast from the quiet, brooding convict they’d traveled with a year ago. He’d begun carrying himself with grace and dignity once more, having beaten his demons with the fists he swore he’d never use again as if to say _‘you control me no longer’_ . An admirable accomplishment, really, especially when Zelos flicked his eyes downwards and looked at _himself._

He’d tried to change, and he knew that. There was evidence of that in every second he spent alone with the boy he loved and the fact that for once in his life, he felt alive and _wanted_ to live. The piece of himself he thought he’d held underwater and suffocated until limp in his arms was _smaller,_ even if not gone.

Zelos knew he had it in him to change, to drop the mask, to strip the title of Chosen One from his heart the way it’d already been stripped from his head. The Journey of Regeneration had taught him that much, and loving Lloyd had only taught him even more.

The problem with breaking old habits, much like _many_ of Zelos’ problems, traced back to _other people._

When he was alone with Lloyd, or surrounded by friends and companions and those who so much as knew his name beyond the word _‘chosen’_ , he could be whomever he pleased. That much was easy, or at least the easiest it’d ever been and perhaps would _ever be._ Around everyone else, the public, the aristocracy, he only knew how to masquerade as the picture-perfect chosen with a face painted just for them--

And Goddess, did that face only make him _miserable_ now.

His nails dug raw into his palms in silence, serene to all but him, and the moment tension wrung through his arms he became intimately aware of the crystals hidden under his gloves. Every single reminder only made bile bubble up to the tip of his tongue in tune with his throbbing heartbeat, until

he 

reached

back into 

his head.

“Hey, Zelos! We made it!” 

The lights were back on again and he was there, on the boat, slinging his fingers around Lloyd’s to settle everything back into its right place. “Alright, let’s go get that Zircon, huh?”

Regal thanked the seafarer, promising ‘ _we won’t be long’_ and ‘ _you’ll be paid generously upon our safe return’_ before shaking his hand. With any luck, this trip would take little time and even less effort with Regal as their guide from point _A_ to point _B._ The noble stepped to the dock that creaked with each subtle movement, beckoning for Lloyd and Zelos to join; they followed in unison, connected at both hip and heart. If Zelos could be honest about nothing else, at least he couldn’t deny the truth in that.

“The entrance to the mines has remained open since the world’s reunification, but to get through to the depths, you will need my fingerprints and retinal scan,” Regal said with a voice both smooth and collected-- enough to soothe any anxieties and quicken the pace. The less restlessness and dragging of feet, the better.

Zelos smirked, the same as he always did. “Alright, so what, we just go in, you flip the switch, we follow you, then we leave?”

“Precisely.” A short walk from the port to the entrance, filled with hardly more than small talk and pleasantries crafted by Lloyd and indulged in by Regal. Zelos could manage little more enthusiasm than the occasional quip, enough to both show little and tell even less. He was _fine,_ just the way he always was. The only difference between _now_ and _then_ was he couldn’t shake the thought of being buried alongside his parents with a body rooted with crystals, both inside and out. _Focus,_ he thinks, _stay here, in the present,_ until--

“Wait, Genis?”

After a quick inhale, Zelos’ eyes refocused only to find his former companion, the congenial traitor, with his back slumped against the iron guard door shielding the mines. A peculiar sight, if there ever was one.

“What are you doing here?” Lloyd asked with wide eyes and furrowed brows; an unplanned encounter with their former companion was unusual to begin with, but in such a strange location with a forlorn expression on his face was nothing short of bizarre.

The half-elf fidgeted, his eyes seemingly staring past his friends and into something no-one else could place. “I’m on a journey. Going to meet up with my sister soon.” Not a single word was the truth, but _Goddess,_ he could never explain to them what he was trying to do and have it turn out in his favour. “Even though there’s no monsters anymore… I thought this would be a good place to stop and rest for a bit. What about you guys?”

Lloyd scratched his head. “Huh. We’re on a journey too. We’re going into the mines.” 

_‘Great timing, if you still plan to find an exsphere here.’_ Mithos’ voice rang and echoed to Genis alone, who ran his thumb over a clenched fist. It seemed since his encounter with Pronyma, his hands were distracted more often than they weren’t.

Instead of sitting and fidgeting with anxious palms, he stood, looking his former companions in the eyes for the first time since meeting once more. “Do you mind if I tag along, just until you’re done here? We could catch up and stuff.”

“Of course. Please, join us.” Regal nodded before placing his hand on the monitor, which ticked and turned and scanned for a split second before the doors slid open with a _click._ “There. Our objective shouldn’t be deep within these mines, and this trip will most certainly be brief.”

“Let’s go then, shall we?” Zelos said with a flick of the wrist and lackluster confidence to boot. He took a single step forward, glancing to Regal who nodded and began leading the way.

As expected by all, the mines were dark, sombre, and each step sent a chill down Zelos’ spine; it was clear that they’d received little use to no use since the world’s reunification. Genis was glued a few paces behind, answering the occasional question about school or his travels with Raine with an absent mind. By now, he’d cast a quick fire spell that sat atop the tips of his fingers, illuminating the darkness alongside the lantern Regal held in his hand. The half-elf’s gaze flickered in tune with the flame he held in his hand, scanning for any fleeting glints of light against the earth--

 _‘In theory, there should still be exspheres here. I suppose you running into them was dumb luck,’_ Mithos whispered crudely into Genis’ ear. He stayed silent; he knew telling his former friends of the newfound web he’d be caught in would only end in disaster. They’d stopped Mithos, they’d been the one to _kill_ him, even. But none of them knew Mithos like he did, and none of him knew that maybe, just like everyone else, he could _change._

The moment the thought crossed his mind, he became distracted by exactly what he’d come here looking for-- a sudden glimmer among darkness.

Quickly, Genis’ eyes darted to the three men in front of him, seemingly too far gone in their own trivial conversations to notice if he skittered to the side and picked up the stone on the ground-- so he did. He reached and he grabbed, and he felt the cool touch of an exsphere deep within his palm before shoving it unceremoniously into his pocket with the precious shard. Seconds later, he glanced back to his companions, only for his stomach to twist and churn upon finding Zelos peering over his shoulder.

Genis looked back at the redhead, each with eyes half-lidded and untrusting. _‘He saw nothing. Just catch up to them and carry on.’_

There would have been little chance for a response anyway, for the moment Genis shoved his hand away, everyone else stopped walking. 

“Here. This is where we keep it.” Regal dipped the lantern to illuminate the barrels and chests below, before using his free hand to grab a shard of Zircon and place it in Lloyd’s open palm. “You can take as much as you need with you.”

“Did Altessa tell us how much?” Zelos asked Lloyd, who shrugged and took a handful.

“You guys are working with Altessa again?” Genis prodded; he had been so caught up in his own goals and ambitions, he’d hardly thought to ask about their own.

Zelos’ eyes narrowed. “Yeah. The old man’s making something for us.”

“Yeah, uh,” Lloyd sensed the sharp tension brewing and chose to disarm rather than fight. “We got what we needed, so let’s get heading back, alright guys?”

“Seconded. Let’s go.” Zelos grabbed Lloyd by the hand and led the party of four without a second thought or any further words exchanged. The silence of everything but their own footsteps rang as the four companions backtracked through the tunnel, until Zelos glanced over his shoulder again, locking eyes with Genis and giving a shared gaze that said

_I don’t trust you._

And it didn’t matter, because their mutual glare was only long enough for fresh air and natural light to engulf their senses once more. They’d made it out of the mines, and now their paths diverged all over again.

Lloyd smiled, friendly and warm-- the complete opposite of Zelos’ energy towards the half-elf. “Well, we’re going back to Altamira, where are you headed now, Genis? Do you need us to take you somewhere?”

“Well…” Genis stopped; there was no easy answer to that question, because he didn’t have an answer at all. “I was just going to walk back to Palmacosta from here. It’s not that far.”

“Maybe we’ll see you around again then, huh?” Zelos said with a smirk. “Especially now that you’re on this new journey with Raine and all.”

“Yeah. Maybe we’ll see each other around.” Genis turned to leave with a frown; he and Zelos had never learned to trust one another, not even with Genis’ tightened grasp around the Eternal Sword or anything he’d done to create peace since. He couldn’t even blame the former chosen for his doubts, considering his own motives were nebulous at best.

 _Selfish,_ even.

“Take care, Genis!” Lloyd called into the distance as the half-elf began walking away, returning the gesture and well-wishes with no more than a smile and a wave. Before long, Lloyd stepped back onto the ship and wrapped an arm around Zelos’ shoulder.

“You seem a little off. What’s up?”

The moment they were alone, the facade dropped, and Zelos’ eyes nearly turned to slits. “I don’t understand that kid, and I trust him even less.”

“Why’s that?” Lloyd blinked, clueless. “I mean, I know he betrayed us once, but he came through and helped us in the end.”

“Because if it’s not sketchy enough that he was hanging out in the mines, alone, when they’ve been closed for a year-- maybe I’m wrong, but I thought I swore I saw him pick something off the ground while we were there.” He continued, shaking his head and staring out into the sea. “And not to mention he seemed pretty evasive about what he was doing, exactly. Didn’t we just _see_ Raine the other day?”

Lloyd, forever one to see the good in people, _still_ couldn’t deny that Zelos had a _point._

“Well, I mean… it’s done now, right? We got another one of the materials we needed, and now we can just exist for a bit, together.” He leaned his head against Zelos’ shoulder, feeling the wind rush against their faces as they set sail. “So just relax for now, okay?”

The redhead smiled, and Lloyd’s warmth resonating against his body made Zelos feel a piece of his heart return he didn’t realize he’d lost. “Ah, hunny. Sometimes you really do know exactly what to say.”

Zelos ran a finger along the crystals sitting delicately above the scar on his wrist, the very one he’d inflicted himself-- his chest rose, then fell in a deep sigh realizing that if the Toxicosis didn’t take him, eventually, he’d likely die by his own hands instead, much like his father did.

As he stood next to Lloyd cheek-by-jowl, Zelos knew he couldn’t allow himself any closer, for Lloyd’s sake; yet, even still, he only drew their bodies nearer, until their heartbeats merged to a single melody. 

For his _own sake,_ he couldn’t resist.

//

Footsteps reverberated down familiar Altamirian halls, each plagued with a sense of nostalgia for times that were different in all the wrong ways. Regal rented them the deluxe suite that night as a get-well-soon gift of sorts-- they’d been there once before, a year ago, following the unexpected removal of Zelos’ Key crest and Mithos dealing Lloyd a near-fatal wound. This time, the threat of death still hung over their heads like a curtain of lace, but now, the sense of _urgency_ wasn’t there. In theory, there was time.

Zelos couldn’t even say he was _happy_ to be back in Altamira, because the circumstances of his last visit only made him feel sick to his stomach. Another reminder of his own failings and the Wilder curse-- his death would be a slow process, a crescendo of pain played by the finest orchestra, until his throat burned in protest and he was ready to give in. The Toxicosis threatened to ravage his body until nothing was left but gems hardened like his heart, but with only two crystals embedded in his skin, if there’s one thing he had, he knew it was _time._

He didn’t know how _much_ \-- only that the time was _there._

Those very same footsteps tapped against the floor until they stopped, sudden and jarring; Zelos found himself at the door to the suite before his head could spin in circles any further, and Lloyd opened the door with a _‘click’._

“We get all this to ourselves tonight,” Lloyd said with a hearty grin and the squeeze of a hand, “Do you remember last time we were here?”

Zelos slung his words off the tip of his tongue. “How could I forget? We were both _half-dead.”_

“Hey, now.” Lloyd grabbed Zelos by the arm and pulled him to bed, enveloping the both of them in plush sheets. “It was also the first time we kissed, and the first time you said _‘I love you’._ ”

That alone was enough to crack through Zelos’ expression of stone, and he pulled Lloyd close enough to rest his cheek in the nape of Lloyd’s neck. “Ah, hunny. Don’t know how you do it, but you’ve always got me thinkin’ glass-half-full.”

“Well, I’m not wrong, am I?” Lloyd adjusted, leaning in closer, as if he possibly could; his eyelashes grazed against Zelos’ cheek and his voice rumbled in his throat when he spoke-- “I still love you just as much as I did that day, Zelos. And I’m not going anywhere.”

Zelos closed the space between their lips with a kiss, until they collided with a smile. “I love you too, Lloyd. I really, really do.”

He shut in his eyes and shut the rest of the world out in tune, leaving nothing but Lloyd and their shared harmony of _inhale, exhale_ against each other’s chests. For a moment alone, he felt as safe as he ever could; he didn’t know how much time he had, but he knew he had it--

And more than anything, he knew he had time for _this._

  
  
  
  


_[year 4065 of the Tethe’allan calendar]_

The Chosen is to be trained in the art of the sword,  
defending his frail body until bound by ropes and  
offered to the Goddess like a beautiful  
lamb to slaughter--

A chosen kills and a chosen saves,  
and a chosen _is_ as a chosen _does._

  
  


_[year 4060 of the Tethe’allan calendar]_

The Chosen must always be beautiful,  
forever an animal caught in a golden trap,  
on display for all the world to see.  
They must charm and inspire,   
for they are not human-- only Chosen.

A chosen pleases and a chosen saves,  
and a chosen _is_ as a chosen _does._

  
  


Zelos gripped his sword between two hands,  
and the clang of metal rang through his ears;  
He’d fumbled his grip and dropped his blade  
leaving him blindsided to the knight’s charge.

His body froze, the rapier grazed his cheek--  
How can a chosen save the world when they   
can’t save themselves? 

_(TRY AGAIN, CHOSEN.)_

  
  


Mylene trained her son to play the piano  
the very same way that she was taught:   
with a cutthroat voice and no mercy.  
The chosen must be no more than a pretty face,   
something to be passed around like a toy,   
consumed for pleasure.

He’d missed a single note,   
floundered against the keys,  
and she breathed down his neck  
with hatred bare in her frozen eyes,

  
  


_(NO. TRY AGAIN.)_

He picked up his blade and knew  
One day, he would kill-- he would _kill,  
_ and then he would _save,_ because  
a chosen _is_ as a chosen _does._

And he strikes, and he misses,

  
  


_(AGAIN.)_

  
  


Chosens are to know the finest symphonies,  
Chosens are to journey and save the world,  
Chosens are to be seen and not heard,  
and his fingers stumble against the keys,  
and why  
can’t he  
get it  
right?

_(AGAIN,_

_AGAIN,_

_AND_

_THEN)_

  
  


the day they forced the splinters of Aionis in his weeping mouth, he saw stars; the moment he bit down his tongue and throat felt like they’d erupt, severing themselves from his own body entirely-- everything down to his blood had to be moulded into the perfect chosen because Zelos alone could never be good enough; as the Royal knights restrained him to stop the tremors all he could think is

_a chosen is_

_as a chosen_

_(does.)_

  
  
  
  


And then Zelos was awake again, biting into whichever piece of flesh he could find first with a kickdrum heartbeat that sped with each breath. It was yet another night spent trembling in Lloyd’s arms, and as he tasted blood in his mouth from grinding his teeth into his own tongue, his pride bled, too.

 _“It’s okay, Zelos-- you’re safe with me--”_ Lloyd cooed with a voice muted and sweet as sugar. Zelos didn’t move, save for small quakes and shivers, and stayed buried in Lloyd’s arms until he could register the sunrise on his cheek. The world was coming back, a single sense at a time, but all Zelos wished was to stay swaddled where he knew he’d always be _safe._

“Hey. Look at me, okay?”

Zelos adjusted his position and allowed their gaze to lock at last; anyone else, and he would’ve swung back with sarcasm instead, but Lloyd was the one thing, one _person_ who could bring him back to baseline, and Lloyd knew that as well as Zelos did.

Lloyd kissed him, gently and so sweetly he thought he’d been pulled into some dream-world where everything was right for once. But that dream-world came crashing until it shattered into glass crystals on the linoleum when Zelos leaned forward into the kiss, raising his right arm to run a hand through Lloyd’s hair. Instead, he froze in place, coughing and sputtering.

“Zelos!? What’s wrong!?” Lloyd nearly jumped at the sudden shift in tempo and pace, only for him to choke on his own words when he looked down.

“I…” he stopped; there was nothing he could say to make things better, and _nothing_ broke his heart more than that. “Let’s go home for a bit, okay? We’ll go see your sister, and maybe that’ll help.”

Zelos nodded; crimson hair had formed a curtain around his cheeks that hid a sense of despair his wide eyes would have given away. His hands shook again, far more gently than they did in the moments before, but enough that Lloyd could clearly see why-- crystals had speckled across both of Zelos’ arms now, each one burnished in the morning light. 

He was running out of time far more quickly than he’d ever imagined.

//

Meltokio was home for Zelos in as many ways as it wasn't. 

Home had always been the snow and ice and the feeling of a sharp gut drop when Mother and Father’s words became too cutting. Home was the illusion of being caged by white towering mansions with pristine glass windows, having everything he needed at the tips of his fingers while being nonetheless empty when every wish was granted. Home was loveless, but it was _familiar._

In _those_ ways, Meltokio was still home, and it never ceased to be; now, nearly two years after departing and thinking he’d never come back, each waning moon did its part to thaw his heart from frigid to lukewarm. Just as the blood that ran through his veins had transfigured from half-dead to temperate, his notion of _home_ was beginning to change, too.

Zelos had hardly opened the door to the manor for the blink of an eye before a smile crossed his face and a familiar voice rang through his ears.

“Big brother!”

The moment he’d dropped his leather bag against the ground, he found himself face-to-face with Seles, who wrapped her arms around him with all her might.

“Hey, little sis.” He’d never be able to explain it if he were asked, but somehow, being by Lloyd’s side with his sister was what _home_ felt like now, and it didn’t feel frigid.

Instead, it felt _warm._

Seles broke from the embrace to stare up at Zelos with gleaming eyes. “I thought you said you wouldn’t be back for a while. Are you taking a break from your journey?”

“We’ll be back for the night, for sure.” And somehow, once again, a sense of grief thrummed in his chest at the thought of having to tell his sister he was _dying._ “What do you think, Lloyd? Are we sticking around?”

Lloyd scratched his head, letting his fingers rest in the thick of his hair. “Uh… maybe for a night or two. We’re still on an important journey, after all.”

Seles’ eyes turned to slits. “Good to know, _Lloyd.”_

“Ah, geez.” Lloyd sighed. “You still haven’t forgiven me for--”

“--No, I _haven’t.”_ Her frown only became more pronounced with each passing word; Seles had taken a liking to the brunette initially, as most did with his endless optimism and simple, boyish charm. Unfortunately, such luck had run its course when Zelos’ tongue slipped and revealed Lloyd had been the emissary of Cruxis to gravely injure her brother the night he came to the Abbey. An _ugly truth,_ but certainly one they couldn’t hide forever.

“Hey, now, you two. I know you love me, but you’ll have to settle down.” Zelos laughed with a hand firm on each of their shoulders. “Why don’t we sit down and chat? Have something to eat? You know, since we’re family.” For once, that final word didn’t make his blood run cold-- he’d certainly had enough of scowling at the mention of it, the same way he’d had enough of the cold and ice to begin with.

Seles nodded, turning her glare to a cordial grin as she looked from Lloyd to Sebastian, who had joined only moments prior. “Sebastian, would you prepare us a meal?”

The faithful butler of the Wilder family bowed his head in response, forever obedient. “Of course, Lady Seles.”

“So, it’s been a while. What’ve you been up to since the last time we showed up?” Zelos asked before reclining against the manor’s familiar couches. Familiar felt warm and familiar felt like home. Lloyd was right; this was exactly what he needed.

Seles talked excitedly with great animation, telling her brother every last detail of her life since his last visit. She had spent much of her time reading, as she always did; it had always been the perfect way to pass the time spent locked in the Abbey-- something to break the monotony of a life in a cage. There had been little else to do, and by the time she had been freed from her binds and moved to the Wilder mansion instead, she could have nearly recited every book she owned, from the first page to the last. She talked about her favourites, the ones she’d stayed up reading until she saw the morning light, and Zelos only felt his smile brighten when he heard her inflection rise in her most passionate moments.

By now, Sebastian had brought out a tray of only the finest dishes to celebrate Zelos and Lloyd’s return, and the siblings continued talking between bites of sweetmeats and lavish desserts. “I’m thinking of learning to play the piano, too, actually,” Seles said with a soft grin and a quick gesture to the grand piano, sitting under the staircase gathering dust. “It’s been here for as long as I can remember, but I’ve never seen anyone touch it.”

Zelos raised a brow with a quick, sharp pang in his chest, as if he’d just smashed his fist against the keys.

_AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN--_

He stopped, Mylene’s words a series of choreographed punctures in that tiny safe place in his mind, each one jabbing and piercing like pinpricks; after only a moment, he recomposed, and only prayed that nobody else could see his eyes had dimmed their shine. “Always good for you to pick up a new hobby, yeah? Especially if you’re going to spend so much time here at the manor.”

“I think you’d be good at that, Seles,” Lloyd said with hesitation wrung thin in his voice. As much as he wanted to regain her trust, flattery got him nothing but another polished glare.

“And what have you two been doing on your _exciting_ travels?” she asked instead.

 _A new journey to save me from my own goddamn blood,_ Zelos mused, mocking his own existence before taking that thought and tearing it in two. He had no plans to tell her of the Toxicosis-- not today, and should they cure it before it devoured him whole, not ever. He wasn’t here to alarm her. He was there for _familiarity_ and _family_ and _home._ Nothing more, nothing less.

“We’re… gathering some materials for a dwarf who helped us out before.” A lie by omission was still a lie, but least _that much_ was the truth. 

Before he could continue or, god forbid, _all-too-honest_ Lloyd could interrupt, the younger of the Wilders spoke instead. “I-- wanted to ask you something, actually, Big Brother,” Seles looked him in the eyes with an unwavering gaze that spoke of true determination. He raised a brow, encouraging her to carry on.

“I know your journey is going to take time, and one day, I want to come with you and see the world.”

Zelos quickly glanced from Lloyd to his sister; twenty years, and he’d never heard her make such a bold request. “You sure about that? Even with your exsphere--”

She cut him off, sudden and unceremoniously. “What do you mean, _‘even with my exsphere’_?”

“Seles, you’ve always been weak because of your illness, and you know that. It would be too dangerous for you to come with us.”

“I _knew_ you were going to say that. At least think about it for more than thirty seconds, okay?” she nearly spat, lifting herself from her chair and shoving it back against the table. “I’m going to my room. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

She trudged up the staircase, each echo of a footstep reminiscent of an anger cold as ice. Even _that_ was _comfortably familiar._

Lloyd turned to Zelos with brows furrowed. “I-- what just happened?”

“Don’t worry about it, hun. Even though we sorted our shit out after the whole Journey of Regeneration thing, things are still... like _this_ between us sometimes.” Zelos reclined further, seemingly carefree after such a taxing conversation. At the very least, arguing with his sister occupied his mind with simpler things than the ever-multiplying crystals speckling across his body.

The brunette sighed. “I don’t have any siblings, so I wouldn’t know. But I guess that does make sense, especially since things were strained between you guys for so long.”

“We’re Wilders. That’s just how we are, and that’s how we’ve always been. Hell, that’s probably how we’ll _always_ be _.”_ He stood, beckoning for Lloyd to join in his footsteps. “Speaking of the _ever-infamous_ Wilders, there’s somewhere I wanna take you, if you’ll let me.”

Lloyd scrunched his brows in confusion, yet nodded his head without a second thought. “Uh… sure. What is it that’s so important you want to show me _now,_ of all times?”

Zelos took Lloyd by the hand with a quick and rough snatch; he led him past the portrait of his mother with her bitter eyes piercing straight through them, enough for Zelos to think perhaps some things really were better off dead. He pushed open the glass doors to the garden that unlatched with an easy click, the warmth of the midday sun teasing against their skin; in moments, Zelos took a seat in front of two headstones and invited Lloyd to do the same.

The brunette’s hands rested behind him against the white cobblestone path, leading from the ice palace of the manor to the two weathered graves sitting lurid among the beauty of the rosebushes. The moment he made out the inscriptions, he knew better than to ask questions.

_MYLENE WILDER // ASLAN WILDER_

“So these are your--” Lloyd began, only to be stopped inelegantly in his tracks.

“Parents. Yeah. Afraid to say this is the closest you’ll ever get to meeting them, but that’s probably for the best.”

Lloyd moved to cup his hand around Zelos’; there was little he could say to something like that. Instead, he chose to satisfy his idle curiosity and fill the silence with something worthwhile. “Your Dad’s name was Aslan?”

“Yeah, why?” Zelos asked as he ran a finger along the inscription on the tombstone to brush away dust and dirt alike.

“I guess i’ve just never heard you say it before. It’s always ‘Dad’ or ‘Chosen’.”

A soft chuckle, brittle and insincere in nature. “I mean, that was the kind of guy my Father was, really. He never went by _Aslan--_ ” he scorned the very name through his teeth, “--he just wanted to be called _Chosen._ So consumed with his image and title, he killed himself over it.”

Lloyd shook his head. “You told me about that once. I was too young to remember when my Mom died, or when my Dad took me back to Cruxis. I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for you.”

“I was angry at him for a long time.” Zelos smirked, snaking the glove off of his left arm. “Day of the oracle, he killed himself and passed off all the responsibility of saving the world to me, because he couldn't do it.” He then traced the cloudy scar on his wrist from the base of his palm until it hitched against the Toxicosis on his forearm. “Same way I almost did to Seles all those years ago when I took _the Chosen’s_ dagger to my wrist. Not like I'm much better.”

“Zelos.” Lloyd’s tone hardened as he gripped Zelos’ hand once more, and Zelos knew it was time to dial back the unmerited self-loathing.

“Alright, _alright.”_ He shot Lloyd a vacant glance and an empty smile. “Depressing as it may seem, I always stop by this place when I need a reminder of how far I’ve come.”

“Well, I mean…” Lloyd glanced upwards at the setting sun, watching the colours flutter across the sky like butterfly wings. “I think you’ve come a long way even in the time since we met. You’re grown a lot. _We’ve_ grown a lot. And you saved the world, too.”

“ _You_ saved the world, hunny.” Zelos laughed, leaning his head softly against Lloyd’s shoulder. “Don’t try to give me any more credit than I’m worth, now.”

“The Chosen title was abolished because of you, though. That’s a big deal."

“And _Aslan Wilder, sixteenth Chosen of Tethe’alla_ would be _so proud,_ wouldn’t he?” Zelos laughed before adjusting back onto his feet. “C’mon, babe, let’s head back inside, alright?”

“Alright, alright.” Lloyd took his partner’s hand and lifted himself from the cobblestone ground, before turning to look him in the eyes. “Hey, Zelos?”

He answered with a smile and a quick flash of teeth. “What is it, hunny?”

“Thanks for sharing all this with me. I… I love you, and I'm happy you can trust me.”

“Really? That’s what you had to say?” Zelos rested his hand on the back of Lloyd’s neck and pulled him in for a kiss, with Zelos’ electric shock fingertips sending shivers down Lloyd’s spine. They stayed there, together, until evening turned to twilight and the darkness hid the shine in their eyes.

Finally, Zelos shut the glass doors behind him, and they prepared to sleep in the same bed he’d tossed and turned in riddled with nightmares as a child, knowing too much more dawdling and he’d likely be buried under a headstone between his parents’ to feel their cold embrace for the rest of his days.

But that didn’t matter now or then or ever, because the only thing he could feel was the weight of Lloyd’s comforting and _safe_ body against his in lieu of his parents’, cold and wasting away. Lloyd’s warmth was home the same way his parents’ corpses buried six feet underground were home. Home was hot and home was frigid and as he drifted off to sleep with bodies on top of him he no longer knew where he was but he could tell you with full certainty

It

Was

Home. 

  
  
  


[Year 4045 of the Tethe’allan calendar]

Aslan Wilder is the sixteenth Chosen of Tethe’alla.

 ~~Aslan Wilder is the sixteenth~~ Chosen ~~of Tethe’alla.~~

The chosen lived a life of lavish luxury, every moment filled with wealth and women and anything he could possibly wring his fingers around. Charming as a terminal disease shrouded in gold and glimmer, all he needed was a flick of the wrist and the perfect string of seductive words to drape those hands over anything he wanted.

(' _chosen’,_ another nameless woman hums with her naked breast resting against his ribs,

 _‘will you at least tell me your name, of all things?’_ )

( _‘please, just call me chosen,’_ he responds with a gilded tongue, 

_'tell me does the word not roll off the tongue and ring in your ears?’_ )

The day the chosen met Mylene he put on the same familiar act, cycled through the same identical motions he always did only for her to respond with words of iron and even heavier jeers _(after all, she was to ruin his life the very same way he ruined hers)._ The first woman to hear the word chosen and respond with anything but greed, and he married only her at Cruxis’ demand, calling him Aslan and letting her hair cover her empty eyes as they _made love_ without a single trace of _love_ to be found.

_(how lucky she must b_ _e to wed the chosen, but never aslan)_

Instead he found love in another woman of cursed blood and for the first time in his life was looked upon with disdain, a woman who cared not for his name and called him nothing more than _chosen_ until the day he died. When the oracle came and he learned of the journey he found being the chosen was little more than a death sentence wrapped in riches; he hesitated when he looked his son in the eyes for the very last time before taking the dagger to his wrist and pressing down until his vision 

turned

black--

_\--At least if he were to die, it would be of his own will rather the goddess’ hands around his neck._

His son then followed closely in his path, luring women into traps with fickle hands and the charisma of a terminal disease. After Mylene passed and cursed his existence with her very last words, the sight of snow made Zelos feel rotten to the core, and he spent every winter in Altamira with another warm, cordial body pressed against his own.

_(not a single one knew his name, and they only called him chosen.)_

//

_‘Almost there…’_

Colette walked through the woods with eyes drawn through the shroud of trees and into the sky; the rustle of leaves and gentle buzz of the forest were small comforts that paled in comparison to the mere _thought_ of reaching her destination. She went as often as she could, as much as the Church would allow her between mass and sermons, and as frequently as she could afford to travel, all for the same reason she still prayed to Martel every night:

It gave her _hope._

She stopped in the very tracks she’d dug herself-- as her shoulders heaved and her pace came to a grinding halt, she gave a sigh before kneeling before the World Tree with unspoken prayers humming in her throat. She prayed for prosperity and she prayed for peace, never once factoring her own wants and wishes into any sort of equation. _Fatally selfless,_ perhaps-- Cruxis may have even called her the _perfect chosen._

Only, her days as the chosen were long over, and Cruxis had been gone for just as much time. Much as Tethe’alla’s former chosen, Colette had never learned to be anything but what she was taught from the day she was born.

_(--a chosen is as a chosen does--)_

A quick series of rustles in the foliage, and the uneasy sensation of another series of breaths nearby broke her from prayer. 

“The tree rarely gets such dedicated visitors. What are you doing here?”

Colette lifted her head to look her newfound visitor in the eyes-- an unfamiliar man, tall, with blue hair pulled back and a white scar stretched deep along his neck. Even after countless visits to the World Tree, she’d never seen him before; if anything, _his_ presence was the unfamiliar one. After a moment of nervous hesitation, she replied-- “I come here to talk to the Goddess.”

“If you’re talking about Martel, she was never a goddess.”

An unusual reply from an unusual visitor. She couldn’t have expected anything less. “I know-- once the worlds were reunited, I found out the truth about Martel, but that doesn’t stop me from believing that she must have been amazing.” Colette tightened her posture. “If you don’t mind me asking, mister, who are you?”

He shook his head, strands of aquamarine hair brushing against his face. “It doesn’t matter who I am. What is it that draws you to Martel?”

“I--” Colette stopped, but sensed with a nervous heart that this man was not an enemy. “I was the chosen of the flourishing world. I’ve always felt a connection to her. Why?”

“I knew Martel before she became falsely known as a goddess.” His gaze was half-lidded and both arms firmly crossed, leaving little to no trace of emotion in his iron-clad expression. “Those who continue to worship her now that the church has been reformed are no more than fools.”

Frowning, Colette chose not to argue in spite of the quick, sharpened jab he’d pointed directly at her. “Well, will you please tell me about Martel, then? I’d love to hear more about her.”

The man shut his eyes, and his demeanor softened for the first time since they met. “She was a dreamer, and she lived in a world that didn’t deserve her. She had endless love for her friends, her family, and even for that same world that wanted her dead.”

“She really does sound amazing.” Colette clasped her hands tighter. “But, didn’t she die during the war? How could you have known her?”

“You’ve still got a lot to figure out, from the sounds of it, Chosen,” He turned with his black cape billowing in the wind, “and I would caution against letting daydreams of Martel get to your head.”

“Wait! Please, come back!” Colette cried, reaching her hand towards the mysterious man who only paced further away, until he was gone.

“W-wait…” She closed her eyes and sighed, quick and earnest. All she’d wanted was to hear more of Martel, to learn of her journeys and struggles and triumphs, whether what her unfamiliar guest told her was the truth or another idle mystery. Mysterious, just like everything about Martel was to her, up to and including why she felt the constant connection like a string of fate tied from her wrist to the Goddess’. Instead, she sat in silence with legs crossed and the tips of her fingers resting in the blades of grass in front of her, and did the only thing that brought her comfort--

She shut her eyes tight, and she talked to Martel.

//

Genis was becoming increasingly familiar with the concept of _fear._

He could recite the definition from heart, along with those of ten other similar words. He knew fear well, like a game of cat’s cradle he wound around his fingers the day he and his sister were chased from the city of elves and finally let fall when the worlds became peaceful at last. For the first time in his life, he had nothing left to run from, until now.

He paced the streets of Palmacosta, each step crunching over the mishmash of cobblestones and dirt, and for the first time since he saw Mithos’ body as nothing more than a mass of shattered crystals, he was truly _afraid._

Genis stopped in the alleyways, sucked in a breath to pull the feeling deeper into the pit of his stomach. Tonight, he had a visitor once more, and she had appeared just as promised. 

“Have you made any progress on your assignment of creating a Cruxis crystal?” Pronyma barked with a tone like needles, leaving no room for idle chatter.

“ _Genis._ My name is Genis.” He was scared, but he wasn’t _stupid;_ he knew her plans couldn’t progress without him, and there’s no way she’d act on empty threats to take his life in the meantime. “And I have this.”

The exsphere he’d taken from the mines twinkled in the evening light the same way it throbbed in the palm of his hands. “If I can find a way to turn this into a Cruxis crystal, or even just to fuse it with the shard to keep Mithos alive…”

“Good work. This will be necessary to carry out the rest of our plans.”

“ _Your_ plans.” The half-elf frowned. “Your plans and my plans are completely different. We just want the same things for now. You haven’t even told me who you _are_ yet.”

“The leader of the Desians, superior half-elves who carry out Cruxis’ will.” She smiled, her eyes glowing with vengeance. “I will revive Cruxis and carry out Lord Yggdrasill’s ideals.”

Genis shook his had. “Mithos doesn’t want that.”

Pronyma’s sly smile quickly turned into a frown. “And _who_ are _you_ to Lord Yggdrasill to begin with?”

Genis’ brows dropped, and he felt ice in his veins once more. Mithos had never been _Lord Yggdrasill_ to him, even in those cruelest moments. “I don’t know anymore, and I don’t know if I ever knew to begin with. But I talk to Mithos every day, and I know I want him to live in the world he always wanted to see.”

“Our agreement will carry out as planned, then. You continue with your objectives and I will continue towards mine. Once our plans diverge, should you interfere, I will not hesitate to take your life.”

“Well, what’s next, then?” It was the only thing Genis could think to say at this point, because he had little choice but to obey with forcefully bound wrists. Despite his foolish sarcasm, somehow, he knew he stood no chance against her and was nothing more than a faun caught in an iron trap-- it was the feeling of being caged once more that wrung fear taught through his body.

“We kill the chosen for taking Lord Yggdrasill’s life.” 

Her words stung and Genis caught his breath between his teeth. Again, with the senseless violence and needless bloodshed; he detested such things now, more than he ever did even as a disenchanted child or a jaded adolescent. Once, he could see the value in sacrifice for what he deemed a greater good, something he could put his heart and soul towards in order to change the world. He could sit and wonder if everyone becoming _the same_ would fix anything, he could hold Mithos’ hand and imagine a world where people like them could have lives worth living.

Now, only the latter held true, and even then, Mithos’ fingers slipped right through his.

“No. Absolutely _not.”_ Genis shook his head with haste and felt furious heat rise to his cheeks. “I’m not killing anybody. I _don’t_ want to be a part of that.”

“Oh, but do you not _hate_ him for what he’s done?” Pronyma’s tone bordered on sing-song, rising to mock and prod. “I figured _you,_ of all people, would want revenge.”

“We already agreed, didn’t we? You’ve got your plans, and I’ve got mine, and whoever finds a way to bring back Mithos first, a _real_ way, gets the shard.”

“Then go, boy.” Pronyma smirked poison with vindictive eyes to match. “Go, _Genis._ Find your way and flaunt your naive idealism.”

 _‘Naive idealism, huh?’_ Genis mulled with unsteady hands and the buzz of doubt in his mind. He spun on his heels, shrouding the poisonous dread that facial features couldn’t hide, before saying his final words and leaving his visitor to her murderous devices.

“I guess we’ll see what happens next time we meet, then.”

Genis stayed for a moment, then left without a word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the fun things about this fic is that I can use it to retroactively fix or provide extra context for things from Weltschmerz I ended up not liking so much. Fun fact: in my original draft of the last fic, Seles was going to join for the journey after chapter 3, but I couldn’t get her characterization right and found it difficult to manage having 6 party members to begin with, so I scrapped the idea. She has a much bigger role in this fic.  
> Also, welcome back, Yuan!


	3. Irony of Being Something

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Emetophobia mention in this chapter - very brief. The three plot threads begin to converge here.[ This fic now has art by the wonderful miniartgalaxy, view here.](https://twitter.com/miniartgalaxy/status/1292897460151619587)

“Oh, the things we invent when we are scared and want to be rescued.”

\- Richard Siken

//

[Year 4019 of the Tethe’allan calendar]

_Mylene Wilder was not always cruel--  
_ _in fact, more often than not,  
_ _she was terribly kind._

She hated her husband, yes-- the _Chosen,_ whom she referred to only as _Aslan_ with a snarl that settled on the tip of her tongue. Mylene loved him the way she loved squirming out of her own skin in too-tight dresses at the Church’s dinner parties, presenting as _the Chosen’s wife_ and nothing more. All that was left of Mylene was the name of the mana lineage, _Wilder,_ trailing after her own as if branded for all of Tethe’alla to see.

_Mylene was gentle, once._

The moment she cradled her son, holding his frail body snug in her arms, her blue eyes softened for the first time since the Oracle damned her to an empty hell in a loveless mansion. Somewhere inside herself, somewhere deeper than her beating heart, she’d rediscovered a feeling she thought she’d long lost.

_Mylene loved, once._

She called him _Zelos,_ a name to match her

_(zēlus (zēlī); second declension - zeal, emulation; jealousy)_

for a life to call her own, unlike that which she suffered from the walls of her ice palace, scrapped like the letters she wrote to her former lovers and threw away. Despite this, she played with her child through sun and shine, until she grew weary and frost crept into her azure eyes, and their shine was replaced by the dead of winter--

 _Mylene was kind,  
_ _once-- and perhaps that  
_ _was the most cruel part of it all._

Zelos grew older, synchronizing down to the second with his mother growing colder. Every time Meltokio’s winding streets froze, Mylene’s heart did, too, until her son’s skin became cauterized the moment she laid those frostbite eyes on him. By the time she died, she couldn’t have cared less; she’d become a corpse with a still-beating heart.

 _The day her body splayed against the snow like a martyr,  
_ _Zelos looked upon her final, frigid gaze and let himself burn.  
_ _For a moment, he felt nothing as he watched her shut her eyes--_

_He’d never been braver  
_ _than he was at twelve years old,  
_ _and he never would be again._

  
  
  


Immediately, Zelos’ eyes flickered open like the sharp _tick-ticking_ of clockwork, letting his chest heave out a breath of stale anxieties that pulled, tugged, and swallowed him whole. Another crystal had tucked itself within the blanket of skin sitting in the crook of his arm, and this time, he strained the muscles around his eyes fighting the sudden urge to sob. Each day was another twenty-four hour rotation closer to the Toxicosis consuming him whole, and every second reverberated in the back of his head like a monotonous, calculated rhythm. 

Surely, he thought after everything he’d been through, he’d be used to dying by now.

“Hey, Zelos. You’re up early.” Lloyd rolled to face the boy at his side, disheveled, brushing messy hair from his face with a smile that lit up Zelos’ world more than even the rising sun could. Maybe one thing about his life was still right, or at least, _right enough_ to get him though whatever this _hell_ was.

When Zelos glanced back, every word he could think to speak stalled in his throat. “Morning,” he said at long last; he threw out the word haphazardly and fought not to dig his fingers into the mess of skin, bone, and exsphere sitting on his left arm. Both palms were already torn and scarred from the fingernails he’d now-opted to keep short, and his mouth still tasted of rust from biting his tongue. At least on the nights he’d wake from terrors, he found that preferable to screaming.

Lloyd grabbed Zelos’ hand, pulling it away from the crystalline wreckage that littered his skin. “I know that things are hard right now... the nightmares, and the illness and everything-- but I want you to talk to me, okay? I don’t want you to keep hurting yourself.”

A moment passed, one where time stopped long enough to hear the ticking and turning reverberating through his head all over again, until Zelos curled up closer and wrenched his heavy head into Lloyd’s chest. 

“I dunno, love. It’s like the more we traveled together, the more things just started coming back to me. Things that never used to bother me. Now with this--” he clenched his fist and gripped Lloyd’s hand tighter, only for Lloyd to lean in and steal a kiss.

“Today, we’re going to get the last of the materials we need to cure this, then we’ll go back to Altessa’s and see if he can give us some advice on using that healing spell. It’s almost over, then it can just be you and me again.”

Zelos sat upright, resting against the bedframe in his childhood home he’d memorized inside and out. By now, he could predict the sensations of his spinal column fitting into the crevices as naturally as speaking. “So, we need a mana fragment, then. Where the hell do we go for that?”

Lloyd shrugged before his mouth hooked into a grin. “Well, you know where the Tower of Salvation used to be, right? There’s… something like a basement right where it meets the ground. Cruxis used to keep lots of their supplies there, and some of the lower-ranks would stay down there if Yggdrasill wouldn’t let them into Welgaia.”

“What, so you’re saying we break into Cruxis’ old hangout then?” Zelos laughed as his thumb traced circles against the back of Lloyd’s hand. “Sounds a little daring, even for us, but okay.”

“Alright. Let go,” Lloyd’s hand tightened, until Zelos nearly felt his insides catch fire from the tangled mess of quivering emotion and sensations. He swallowed nothing before speaking once more. 

“Let’s go, _together.”_

//

“Argh--”

Genis’s hand shook open, letting the exsphere between his fingers fall with a _clink_ against the texture of Sybak’s desks. It was no use. No matter how hard he tried, his shard of Mithos’ crystal wouldn’t fuse with the gems he’d collected, and every remaining grain of hope he had left was beginning to shrivel and die. At the end of each day, he was left with nothing but Mithos’ fading consciousness and a growing pile of exspheres, automated and hollow.

His musings of living alongside Mithos in the new world felt so close, sometimes, that Genis thought he could reach out, grab the other boy by the hand, and pull him close enough their hearts would swell into the base of both their throats. Genis, however, seemed to be met with nothing more than failure with each excruciating attempt. Perhaps, even in spite of his stubborn efforts, the Yggdrasill siblings were never meant to live in his world, better left as lifeless beings before fading completely.

Brooding, the half-elf let his head rest in his palms, digging them into the hollows of his eyes until the pressure made him see stars. He was becoming accustomed to the erratic, yet increasingly familiar _pang, gasp, clink_ of each faulty mana transfer, but it never seemed to get any _easier._

_‘Genis. There are countless books here, even documents from the ancient war. At the very least, do what you do best and research it.’_

Genis glanced up with sullied eyes, meeting Mithos’ gaze before snatching the useless exspheres from the desk back into his hands. “I mean, you’re right, but you’re not even going to give me any hints here? You’re the one who’s supposed to know all about this stuff, about Cruxis crystals and exspheres and whatever. Don’t say you can’t help me.”

Mithos smirked, reclining back in his chair with one arm folded over the other. _‘It’s funny, seeing you like this, you know.’_

“Like _what?_ ” Genis glared, careful to keep his voice scarcely more than a whisper. Whatever Mithos thought was so funny, Genis was certainly not having any of it.

Mithos cocked his head with heavy-lidded eyes and a grin that could kill. _‘You were just telling me the other day about how evil I was, how I hurt so many people. And here you are, doing the same thing for me. The irony is painful, really.’_

“We are different, though. I want you and your sister to live in the world you always wanted to see. The one you’d twisted everything for. _Hell,_ I’m the only one who--” Genis shut his mouth and stopped, frowning. “I don’t want you to fade away. Not now, and not ever.”

_‘But you do understand why I felt the way I did, do you not? The lengths I would go to create a world just for my sister and me?’_

Lips pursing, Genis’ frown sharpened. “You see this city? Raine and I were kicked out and branded criminals once, just for lying about being half-elves to try and make a better life for ourselves. Now, I can come to this same town just fine and even use their facilities without a single _shred_ of fear. It didn’t happen overnight, and it’s not perfect, _no!_ But I want you to live in a world like this, too. I want _you_ to live, Mithos.”

 _“Sssh!_ Quiet down over there!”

The half-elf’s gaze darted to the floorboards until his tone returned to a hush. He’d hardly considered his volume rising in the midst of their blistering conversation.

_‘If you insist, then there is a way. I’m assuming in this world, you can create a Cruxis crystal on your own. It will not be without pain, but I know by now that you’ll keep looking for a way until it devours you, just as it did me.’_

A hand snaked across the table, and Genis’ Cruxis crystal sparkled with each fleeting glint of light in the library hall, as if even it was begging Mithos for more. A lump grew in the boy’s throat, and his voice, though quiet, cut like a dagger.

“Please, then tell me, Mithos.”

 _‘Alright, then. Give me your hand.’_ Mithos reached back until his fingers passed through Genis’ Cruxis crystal, sinking through muscle and marrow. _‘I have something to show you. A memory.’_

Genis nodded, and then he felt his eyes screw shut.

  
  
  


[Year 482 of the Aselian calendar]

_Such unfortunate children; how sad--)_

They said with pity moored in their eyes,

_(--Hardly deserving of the Elder’s kindness, truly._

All of Aselia searched desperately for someone else to blame for their own misfortune when war descended like a plague. Half-elves became scapegoats, _victims,_ that only lived with targets on their backs, each word, quip, and blade cutting so deep, it’d never stop bleeding. Heimdall, kind as a knife inched from the neck, once housed two halflings-- siblings of tainted blood who would one day take that scalpel and rend the world in two.

 _Martel Yggdrasill,_ sister, daughter, mother-of-sorts,   
whose kindness was spoken of by the elves   
even before they muttered of her blood,

_Mithos Yggdrasill,_ one day to be called the hero,   
and a monster, on the day his fragile heart   
_shattered_ against the bloodied ground,

and, yet, the Elder turned a blind eye to the poisoned lineage to spare their elven mother, whose body withered as a casualty of war--

_(“the capitol’s army needs more cruxis crystals,_

_i’m afraid you’ll have to keep up the toil,”)_

_(“i’m sorry, elder, but--_

_there’s no more left of me to give.”)_

Mithos was seven years old when she became ill, each day spent slaving over exspheres and runes to birth crystals just as cursed as the blood that wept through her children’s veins. It had been their mother’s magic that created such technology and raised the stakes of war; truly, the only reason they were not cast from Heimdall with the rest of the half-elven swine, forsaken without sympathy or reason. 

He noticed his mother growing weary-- so obvious, even a child could see it, yet, ever oblivious, he thought she was only playing pretend. He saw the way she cast her raw, concentrated magic upon exspheres lined up like Sylvaranti soldiers, and her eyes dimmed their shine with each one;

One,

Two,

Three,

On his eighth birthday, she had become too weak to leave her bed, and the anguish of war hung heavy in her gaze. Every day, she sat at her desk littered with gems and cast the magic that turned them to Cruxis crystals,

Four,

Five,

Six--

and by the time he turned nine she spoke only in whispers with a voice that burnished like sandpaper in her throat,

Seven,

Eight,

Nine--

until the day he found her in bed with a hand clutching a single crystal, thumping like a heartbeat in lieu of her own. Mithos shook the carrion body with his trembling hands, until every ounce of fear and sadness dawned on him that that was Mother’s end--

In his palm sat her Cruxis crystal, and he gazed into its brilliance so close he saw his own uncertain reflection, each flickering sunbeam beating in tune with his own heart.

_Something inside Mithos wavered;_

_He felt a new fascination clawing in his chest._

  
  
  


Genis snapped back to reality, the transition as harsh and cruel as the memories Mithos had grabbed by the throat and screamed through his teeth. His hand felt numb, yet it _ached_ where Mithos’ fingers grazed over his crystal, and the removal of the ghastly touch felt as sharp as the breaking of brittle bone. For a moment, he was in Heimdall, watching Mithos’ mother waste away for the sake of the war, and now here he was, back in the Sybak library with nothing more than a spectre and a hollow feeling in the pit of his chest.

“So your mother… She created Cruxis crystals? But how?” Genis’ voice quivered, careful to keep it hushed as a whisper once more even as he shook like an injured dog. 

Mithos’ expression only sat deadpan, far from disturbed. _‘My mother crafted Cruxis crystals, or Hi-exspheres-- yes. It’s the only reason the Elder allowed us to stay in Heimdall as long as we did.’_

“Then-- how?” Genis choked back. He’d hesitated for a moment; Mithos took immediate note.

 _‘You know how you’ve been transferring your mana to the exspheres, yes?’_ Genis shook out an unsteady nod to match his voice, and Mithos continued. _‘That’s channeling mana. Creating a Cruxis crystal involves sacrificing it. Giving up a piece of yourself until the exsphere evolves into something more. The process is incredibly painful, and it eventually took my mother’s life.’_

A sharp frown spread across Genis’ face, until finally, he crunched his brows and whispered. “I guess that makes sense. Is that why you spent so long trying to find another way to make them?”

_‘I suppose. As you can imagine, the creation of Cruxis crystals during the war required a vast amount of mana, and once the world was split in two, it became impossible. We attempted to create them through other means.’_

Genis paused, filled with righteous indignation and a gaze that could have easily pierced through skin. “You said before that the technique was lost. I want to learn it.” 

Mithos’ eyes were heavy, filled with smug satisfaction. _‘Origin, the Summon Spirit of Birth, has likely retained the spell in his wide-reaching memory. If you’re as set on this as I think that you are, then go.’_

Genis rose on trembling feet. “Then I’ll do it. I have to.”

He could never tell anyone why, but something still burned inside of him, so much-- something in his chest, something in his head, something everywhere and nowhere all at once. As he stood and left to meet his destiny, Genis was certain something would stand in his way, that he’d be forced to back down, that somewhere out there was a reason none of this was to be. When he shuffled out the door, he waited for pain, ache, and hurt. 

Nothing stopped him, and the pain never came.

//

Zelos had not set foot upon the Tower of Salvation since the day he brought Mithos to his demise.

It was still bizarre to him, really, to live in a world without the tower that spiralled to the heavens long before he was born, knowing one day he would reach out his arms, waltz through the same careful script he was bred to, and save the world. Now, returning to the same place he tore crystal from bone only made him feel ill.

“So, hunny, how do we get in exactly?” Zelos trembled, and he would be the first to admit he didn’t know why. The sickness he felt-- the disease of the mana lineage, clutched at and dragged him down with hands as steady as thieves. 

Even beyond being the sacrificial lamb for Tethe’alla’s sake, the same way he was born to save the world, he was bred to die.

Lloyd’s vision darted from side to side, and Zelos took careful note of the way each of his breaths stuttered and stalled. Maybe Lloyd wasn’t so certain of all of this the same way Zelos felt a strange confliction even standing there, dreaming of tearing the crystals from his skin until finally screaming himself hoarse.

Thankfully, he wouldn’t have to; this was no more than a matter of _in,_ then _out,_ until finally--

Lloyd spoke again, the familiar, rattling voice dragging, calling Zelos home. “Well, there used to be an entrance around the back somewhere… but I dunno whether we’ll really be able to get in or not, since the rest of the tower is gone.” The apprehension in Lloyd’s voice was thick enough to hold his head underwater.

“So, what, was it another one of those portals or some sort of real entrance we could walk to?” His blunted nails tried to dig into the balls of his palms of their own volition, as if mechanical. If this plan didn’t work, he was as good as dead.

Lloyd skirted to the left, circling the base of the tower in rhythmic motion. Zelos locked his fingers around those of his partner and followed in every step, one after the other in perfect cadence, until his eyes began to glaze over, everything felt farther away, and he was watching 

from outside 

his body--

“Here we go.” 

An abrupt stop, and Zelos stumbled over his own feet the moment he felt reality’s claws catch him once more. Pulling the curtains shut in his own head and standing outside himself as a stranger was becoming second-nature, the same way his fingertips clenched at any raw skin they could find. With the way each nightmare tore at the delicate bits of his mind and the Toxicosis ravaged his body, it seemed he was watching his life from a distance more than he was experiencing it for himself.

Still, he was here and surely, he’d be saved soon, so Zelos focused back on Lloyd, because he knew if he did, he’d stay in that moment forever if he could. He refocused his wandering eyes, then stopped and raised a brow, as if unimpressed. 

“It’s just… a cave? That you enter from the back? Alright, I guess.”

“Yeah. I’ve only been down here a couple times, and it was usually just to get supplies for the seraphim. But I do know my way around enough that hopefully we can just be in and out.”

“Ha,” Zelos breathed, half-laughing, half-sighing, and entirely _exasperated._ “I’m gonna trust ya on this one, babe.”

Immediately, they descended down a spiral staircase that’d been reduced to little more than rust, each step winding like the unraveling of tethered string; fitting, considering the knot in Zelos’ stomach that grew tighter as the bottom drew closer. _Might as well be the pit of hell,_ he thought. He wanted to step foot in Cruxis’ lair just as much as he wanted eternal damnation, but coming here, holding the mana fragment between his scabbed fingers, and _running_ was the only thing he knew for certain could save him from such.

“Didn’t even know this existed. Considering how big that damn tower was, it’s a wonder the Big Bad needed any more space at all.”

Lloyd stopped, his pupils flicking like darts across the mess of abandoned magitechnology. “Well, some of the subordinates used to stay down here, too. Most of them were just Desians that weren’t allowed into Welgaia.”

“Desians, huh.” Zelos drew in a breath, careful not to let his eyes rest on anything for too long. Whatever they were doing, it certainly felt like trespassing. “Tower’s gone, obviously, and the angels went back to Derris-Kharlan. Then what happened to the Desians?”

“Uh…” Lloyd exhaled, wrought with hesitation. “I mean, your guess is as good as mine. But everything’s been peaceful since we reunited the worlds.”

Every floor of the Tower’s basement looked like a carbon-copy of the last-- untouched, a relic of a world that never was. At the bottom sat Cruxis’ former storage space, hopefully to house the final material to cure his fatal disease. After the way the gems multiplied in exponents even Zelos’ prowess for numbers couldn’t calculate, the thought alone could have turned his breathing erratic.

“Okay, this is it.” Lloyd reached out a hand, grasping at nothing in particular, digging through anything they could possibly find in their hastened search for the mana fragment so that

they 

could-- 

_“Get out.”_

Zelos’ head whipped around his shoulder with each finger dug tightly around into a sharp, jagged stone, until his gaze came to a grinding halt on whoever or _whatever_ had threatened them in this seemingly empty dungeon. Laying eyes upon them made his blood freeze cold.

Quickly, Lloyd secured his hand around Zelos’ wrist and looked as if he were about to tear them both away without a second thought. The moment he spoke, he stammered. 

“Z-- zelos. Take the mana fragment, we have to go.”

The lighting lay dim in Cruxis’ crypt, leaving Zelos few clues as to who their visitor was or why their presence turned Lloyd’s face white with terror. Still, Zelos’ eyes turned fierce, and he gripped the sword at his side as if screaming _you’ll never take me alive,_ ready to fight and kill if he must.

“Zelos, no!” Lloyd shouted, dragging the boy at his side closer using as much force as he could manage without sheer violence. “Don’t fight! Just _run!_ Come on, let’s go!”

A woman’s laugh reverberated through the cell and rang in their ears, deep and hollow as their very surroundings. 

“Chosen of Mana. This crypt will become your shallow grave.”

Lloyd’s eyes fixed on the silhouette of the woman before them, until he took that sense of force and growled back one word-- _“Pronyma!”_

 _“Ah,_ and the Aurion boy, too! What a _treat.”_ Pronyma’s smile constricted like fingers around his neck. “Imagine my satisfaction when I take both of your lives.”

“And who the hell are you, huh!?” Zelos snarled through his teeth before raising his sword in an empty, disposable threat. Maybe this time, he could be the strong one. Lloyd wouldn’t have to be the one to save him again, again, _again--_

“You come into _my_ lair and then demand _my_ name? Pitiful, really.” She reached out her hand, a mere shadow in murky light, and within it materialized a leaden mace fraught with magic and glowing with mana. A slender hand curled over the instrument of death. “But I won’t be wasting this opportunity. You, Chosen of Tethe’alla, took the life of our leader, Lord Yggdrasill, and you will pay for this crime with your life.”

“I don’t think so!” Zelos lunged forward and his silver blade locked with her shimmering weapon, dull enough that he could see the blue of her eyes--

_\--The blue_

_of her eyes--_

And for a second, he stopped.

“Zelos! We need to go!” Lloyd tugged and grabbed his partner, whose nimble movements fumbled and left the mana fragment splayed against the ground, open like prey waiting to be snatched. Lloyd pulled Zelos back up the stairs without a single thought, ready to flee and nothing more, until Zelos tore a lightning spell from his battered hands, igniting white light through the pitch-black room that made their eyes sear. For a moment, he could finally see his foe’s face. 

The world turned frigid.

Pronyma looked him in the eyes and for a moment he wasn’t looking at her but a swirling Rorschach of someone he once knew, whose frigid stare matched hers like a twisted pedigree split in two, until she reached out her hand and 

_FOCUS, ZELOS_

He dropped to his knees like a puppet cut from string, letting his sword fall and clink against the ground with each subtle impact it created. A demon with his mother's face, whose nails dragged across his pale, sullen cheek like winter beneath her fingertips, and _mother, come home, I'm sorry,_ and

_FOCUS, CHOSEN_

Mylene's hands were so cold. They were so cold. They were so cold. They were so cold. They were so cold. They were so cold. They were so cold. They were so cold. They were so cold. They were so cold. They were so cold. They were so cold and

_FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS_

Pronyma’s hands were _so cold_ as she caressed his fear-stained face with that same glacial gaze he saw in his dreams, until her nails and frostbite eyes tore through his skin and drew blood that dripped to the floor with the same rhythm that echoed through his head, 

tick, 

tock, 

drip, 

drop--

“ _Zelos!_ We’re going, _now!_ ”

Lloyd ran as fast as his legs would carry him, dragging Zelos by the wrist until his mother’s dead eyes left his mind and he joined Lloyd, panting deep, repeated breaths in and out with feet stumbling, pattering up the winding staircase--

“Lloyd! We need to go back! I lost the mana fragment!” he cried with a voice that tore and grated, wiping the blood from his cheek until it stained his glove red. The lady of Cruxis was the spitting image of her with those same, frigid, spiteful eyes, and-- 

Run. 

RUN. 

_FOCUS. FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS_

“Forget it! She’ll kill us!” Lloyd’s grip around his wrist tightened, strangling like a cobra, if such a snake were a lifeline pulling him from one damnation to the next. The pattering of footsteps against the magitech stairs continued, and neither one of them looked back.

A glow of natural light graced their vision, strong enough to burn into their retinas for a moment alone and instill some sort of hope that they’d outpaced their new enemy.

“Just a little farther. We just need to keep going--”

Zelos’ vision blurred, pulsating in the corners of his eyes. The moment they hit solid ground, his body shivered in the cold daylight. His world shook, and then stilled; he was _cold._ Everything was cold. 

“Lloyd,” Zelos choked out like a frantic child, until Lloyd reached out and took him into his arms. “Who _was_ that?”

Lloyd frowned, then froze like snow. Like _winter._ “Her name’s Pronyma. The leader of the Desians. I didn’t know she was still here.” He glared, clenching his jaw, “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“Ha.” Zelos brought a battered hand up to his cheek and grazed the mark she’d left. Blood rushed to his head, tightening and pulsating, until he let his lips silently form words that he could hardly choke from his mouth--

“She looks just like my mother.”

The moment they were certain they’d made it, that they’d outrun the devil with his mother’s eyes, Zelos fell to the ground and wept until he collapsed completely.

Somehow, he was still braver the day Mylene died than he’d ever been since.

//

A hum crept up Genis’ throat until it grazed his tongue, each breath crumpling like he’d swallowed twigs. Waiting had never been one of his strengths, and he _knew_ this. Tonight, he sat bow-legged on the Palmacosta docks, clutching Mithos’ crystal in the palm of his hand the same as he ever did. It took moments for the half-elf’s ghastly shadow to relax by his side, and he joined Genis in watching the sun dip below the water. Beautiful scenery for a meeting that only made him want to vomit into the same ocean he dangled his feet over, staring wide-eyed into the tides.

_‘Funny how a year and a half ago, we were doing the same you are now, meeting in secret to fulfill some big plan. I suppose some things really don’t change.’_

“Yeah, and you were manipulating me to join Cruxis.” Genis spat the words from his mouth the same way a child would spit out baby teeth. “I don’t support what Pronyma wants, and you don’t, either, and obviously she’s not going to listen to me. But she might be able to help, at least for now.”

Mithos’ brow darted upwards, long enough for it to catch the other boy’s eye. _‘I was hardly manipulating you. We wanted the same things, much like you and Pronyma do right now. You can do whatever you like, but don’t pretend you’re being righteous when you’re standing in my shoes.’_

Genis’ face soured before his eyes turned from the water to his phantom. “I just--.”

_‘Careful. Your visitor is here.’_

Silver hair fell from Genis’ eyes as he looked to the sky with a grimace. Pronyma’s footsteps hardly made a sound as she approached, undetected; her presence alone nearly felt like an intrusion.

“I don’t suppose you have created a Cruxis crystal for me yet.”

He shook his head, as expected. Her gaze punctured straight through him.

“Careful, _Genis._ Your value is beginning to wear thin.”

Genis could hardly resist snarling in reply. His face burned pink the same way his eyes seethed red. “I’m going to see Origin. I’m going to learn the art of making Cruxis crystals. And what are _you_ doing?”

“Tethe’alla’s chosen paid me a visit at the base of the Tower, albeit unexpectedly. His body and mind are weak. Killing him will be no more than child’s play.” Her single-sided grin was sharp enough to rival the dagger Zelos’ father once took to his wrist. “The last of the Desians are preparing to take the Chosen’s sister by force. I trust you will have completed your _sole task_ by then.”

Genis finally stood and faced Pronyma without fear, even as the distance between them continued to close in. Thunder rang through his ears as he matched her gaze. “Yeah, and I trust I’ll have found a _better way_ by then.”

“Ha. Do what you have to do, boy. But if you don’t find a way to see your idealistic nonsense through, then the crystal is mine, as was _agreed upon._ ” 

The half-elven boy glared back, while Pronyma’s heavy-laden eyes only drooped further. “I take that as full agreement, then.”

Genis gripped the crystal shard until it pierced through skin, and he walked away. Mithos’ words vibrated through his head, and for the first time, he was beginning to wonder what was _right_ anymore, what was _good_ and _righteous,_ and if anything he’d ever done had been more than self-serving, egotistical, and mindlessly self-indulgent. 

Even still, the more time he spent in Pronyma’s presence, intimately aware of how her hands were wet with blood of people she didn’t remember killing-- he could only pray that if one of them were to snap in the midst of their chaotic plans, it would be him before her.

//

When Colette would visit the tree to offer tight-lipped prayers to the Goddess, she found she was no longer alone. It had started identical to the time prior, a cloaked figure lurking from the shadows with words as cryptic as his very presence, and eventually progressed to a bizarre acquaintanceship of sorts; the man with the aquamarine hair would sit by her side as she prayed to Martel, often without a single word spoken. On that day, at long last, she decided to break the silence.

“Mister Yuan,” Colette spoke-- he’d finally told her his name after hours seated in secrecy, waiting for some lingering sign Martel was listening-- “If you don’t mind me asking, how did you get that scar on your neck?”

The way sunspots between each lush tree illuminated the forest made the discolouration stretching across his neck like a faultline all the more vibrant. Yuan’s face, however, was unchanging. “A bold question to ask someone when you know nothing more than their name.”

“I-I’m sorry.” Colette’s eyes widened before her pupils shrunk to the size of the beams flurrying across the forest floor. “It was rude of me to ask, wasn’t it?”

Yuan sat cross-legged, cross-armed, with a disposition like stone. He would have none of the idle chatter. “I betrayed someone I had stayed loyal to for a millennia. This was their idea of justice and revenge.” 

Colette let her brows crease, even if softly. “I don’t really think justice should be compared to revenge. That just doesn’t seem right to me.”

“Hmph. To some, they are one in the same.” The moment the mysterious man stood to leave, his voice eroded into a rumble. “I fought against an oppressive system once _._ That required me to betray an old friend, who didn’t take it kindly. His twisted view of justice was revenge. This scar is a reminder of that.”

Colette clasped her hands, sitting with her legs tucked neatly against the foliage. “Are you going now, Mister?”

Yuan’s back had turned, shrouding his face, his scar, and the thunder in his voice from her immediate vision. “I suppose I should let you indulge in your daydreams of Martel while you’re here.”

“I--” Colette wasn’t sure how she was going to finish that sentence. _‘I’ll see you next time’_ , maybe; _‘I want to hear more of your story, stranger, acquaintance, friend, please come back’_ would have been just as likely. Still, she sighed, because her new _stranger-bordering-on-acquaintance, maybe-even-friend_ was right. Colette had come here with a purpose.

She shut her glassy eyes and interlocked her fingers, each touch and glance transient, and let herself be filled to the brim with the warmth of the Goddess.

This time was different, somehow, in some way she couldn’t think to name. Each nerve ending beneath her skin felt like it was trapped in the midst of the blazing sun, until there was a sharp _pause_ in her breath-- 

Moments passed that felt like a millennia until the burning engulfed her entirely, and she wanted to open her eyes and see what had become of her body but it felt like her eyelids had been fastened shut, and she felt a _thrum_ in her chest, in her _veins,_ like an intrusion that she could never have refused, until she felt something

reach

and

p 

u 

l 

l,

Tugging at her heartstrings, or perhaps some other place inside her she couldn’t fathom even existed until now, and she gasped until it _hurt,_ until she knew there was something inside her body or her mind or _something else_ that she couldn’t explain, until she heard a single word echoing, 

_echoing,_

_echoing--_

“Colette.”

It was her name. Her own name, ringing through her ears until she opened her eyes and discovered she was no longer in front of the world tree, but whatever strange void lay before her. She heard her name and she heard footsteps, a _tap, tap, tap_ against some sort of endless abyss.

“Colette. Please, would you listen to me?”

A woman stood before her, tall, with hair the colour of the forest’s fresh leaves, and a smile gentle enough to lull her fears without a single word, even as lost as she felt there and then.

“Who-- who are you?” Colette nearly stumbled on her own words the same way she often stumbled on her own feet, but she stopped herself before she choked entirely. This woman felt familiar, like a blurred photograph of a home she hadn’t seen in years yet still knew like the back of her hand. The closer she advanced, the more everything stepped into focus.

The transient woman before her beamed a smile full of secrets, and still, somehow, even its mystery soothed. “I’ve been listening to your prayers, your dreams of a better world. I must ask something of you, if you will lend me your ear.”

“Are you--” Colette stopped, letting herself mull over whatever and wherever this woman had reached within her and _pulled--_

“My name is Martel.” That very same secrecy dissipated in harmony with Colette’s growing astonishment. Martel continued. “I was known, even hailed, as a Goddess once, but all I have ever dreamed for is a peaceful world.”

 _“Martel.”_ The word escaped Colette’s lips, sweet as sugar, yet equally desperate. She inhaled, arching her back, and spoke with a voice that was as frightened as it was bold-- “What do you need me to do, Martel?”

“There is one who seeks terror, looking to cause pain and suffering to countless people. Colette, I am begging you with everything I have left, please... stop her.” Martel’s hands clasped, a perfect mirror of Colette’s own. 

“There is someone looking to create a Cruxis crystal for the first time in a millennia-- she plans to use it to lead this peaceful world on the path to destruction. Please, if you believe in the same future I do, I ask you to stop those who seek to destroy...”

Colette deliberated with thoughts weighing as heavy against her chest as the hand that still reached within her, keeping her body locked in place. Her reply was near-instantaneous.

“Yes, Martel. I’ll do just as you ask.”

Martel reached out a hand and grazed her fingertips along Colette’s cheek, soft as the fur of an animal to match her rabbitlike heartbeat. “Thank you, Colette, for doing what I cannot. In Palmacosta, the city of your birth, you will find a half-elf who will aid you in this journey. It is her brother of whom you must be wary. You must stop Origin from allowing the creation of the Cruxis crystal, and you must protect those of the Chosen bloodline.”

Gloved hands clasped tighter, _tighter,_ as Colette felt Martel’s thumb circle against her pale skin. “I’ll do anything you ask,” she finally said with a creak at the base of her throat. Her voice, though strong, still wavered.

“I release you, then. Please, return to me and speak your prayers. I have always listened.” Her green eyes brightened, somehow shining even in the white void they occupied, and she smiled.

A series of moments, _seconds,_ that felt only like the blink of an eye, and the chokehold around Colette’s ribs was released. She was back in front of the World Tree, staring up at the pristine blue sky as if called back from a faraway place. The moment her dreamlike state shattered against the ground, she relinquished her strength and collapsed, arms spread across the grass and dirt, watching the clouds drift by as if she were only sleepwalking.

A hand was raised to the sky as if to cusp the stars, and each syllable split at the seams as she breathed out in disbelief--

“...Martel.”

//

Genis set foot into Heimdall without a trace of protest; _This is the way things are supposed to be,_ he thought in silence. Each step against the tough ground felt like risking a pain that never came, a rejection that manifested only as a twist of fear in his stomach and nothing more.

Frankly, Genis had been convinced returning to the city of elves would hurt him far more than it did. Fortunately, fear was just another emotion, and he was just another boy who knew it like the dips and veins on the back of his hand.

The last time he stood before the people of this village, he had been little more than a child, wide-eyed with shaggy silver hair to hide his distinctly half-elven ears, the dead-giveaway that he was not one of them and never would be. Today, he showed them with just as much pride as he did with unease. Heimdall was changing, too.

_This is the way things are supposed to be._

Genis stopped, twisting his head from left to right, observing the peace and skeptical looks he snatched from passersby when their paths crossed. His voice turned to a whisper.

“See, Mithos? Even here in Heimdall…” The moment he stopped, he realized the mistake he’d made and dared not say another word.

_‘They threw you out the same way they did to me and Martel. I’m supposed to be impressed because you can walk through the city on your own?’_

Genis scrunched his brows. He should have known bringing it up would irritate both of them more than anything else. “I just mean it’s getting better. Better is still a big deal, isn’t it?”

Mithos folded one arm over the other, his ghastly eyes clouded with disdain. Each word he spoke was sly and rough. _‘Heimdall has spent four thousand years beyond my forgiveness.’_

“The world is changing, Mithos.” Genis slicked silver bangs from his eyes before stopping at the outskirts of the forest. “And I like the world we’ve created.”

The atmosphere tightened, and he noticed another presence in his peripheries before a voice called to him with a snap.

“What business do you have in the forest, child?”

The half-elf turned on his heels, a quick, graceless pirouette against the unwrought earth. He didn’t even care to look at his company before clamping his teeth together and spitting out “I’m sixteen. I’m not a child, you know.”

The moment he looked up, Genis found himself staring directly into the Elder’s vacant eyes, and he doubled backwards, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process. “You--”

“Many of us have lived for centuries, millennia, even. Sixteen is very much a child.” He wasn’t wrong, but Genis had spent countless nights dreading the very _idea_ of this situation becoming reality. The moment he realized he must return to Heimdall, Genis prayed to a Goddess he _knew_ wasn’t real that he could slip by the Elder’s all-seeing eyes.

“I thought for so many years about what I’d say if I ever saw you again,” he gasped, reaming out every breath as if he were twisting and churning them, “You destroyed my life, and my sister’s, too. You know that much, don’t you?”

 _‘Careful there, Genis,’_ Mithos’ voice spoke from behind him with dual spite and sincerity. Genis’ pupils darted, but he said no more. For once, the spectre’s mutterings were worth listening to.

The Elder loosened the grip on his staff as if some semblance of a peace offering. “Heimdall has been wrong in the past. We are earnestly looking to change our ways to reflect those of the new world.”

“A new world that _I_ helped create.” Genis felt heat rise to his cheeks. “I’m going to see Origin, whose power I used to help join the two worlds, to answer your question.”

“You have gained Origin’s trust, and thus, I won’t stop you.” The Elder’s lips formed the closest thing to a smile even Mithos had seen yet. “Our world is undoubtedly in debt to your efforts.”

“You don’t even know my--” The half-elf bit down on his lip to stop himself from continuing. _You don’t even know my name,_ he would have said, had the boil in his chest not turned to a simmer. If anything, he’d expected far more resistance and hostility. Instead, his curt demeanor cracked, and he found himself with a grin nobody but Mithos could have noticed.

Genis said no more than _“Thank you”--_ he left, and the endless space between him and the Elder only widened as he walked away. His shoes crunched against the ground as he stepped from the village to the forest, and as he walked away, he thought to himself, 

_This is the way things are supposed to be._

//

Colette gazed from the windows of Palmacosta’s church to the bustling city beyond its walls, letting her chest heave and the breath she was holding expel at long last. It was as if each panel of stained glass were a box made of mirrors with walls constricting, _tightening,_ until all she could see was her own terrified reflection.

Martel had certainly entrusted her with a tremendous task.

The journey Martel had dragged her on grabbed Colette by the shoulders and swung her body with so much force, she could still feel it echo even now, down to each fingertip that quaked even still. Martel had spoken to her, picked her out of all those who still saw her as a Goddess, and told _Colette_ to save the world in her stead. It was almost too _massive_ to be real.

Surely, it _couldn’t_ have been real-- Yuan had told her that Martel was long gone, that she was only a girl who had the weight of the world thrust upon her, that she was deified against her will, that everything she knew of Martel was no more than a fabrication spun by the Church to further a narrative that never existed.

 _Why,_ she thought, then, _if she wasn’t still real in some way, in any way-- why would he come to pray to her, too?_

Clenching her fists, Colette shook the doubt from her mind. She thought of how something had grabbed a piece of her so deep, she thought it could never exist, and of being dragged into the space somewhere in her own mind where they’d made contact. She brought a trembling hand to her chest and let it rest in place; somehow, Colette could still feel it.

“Oh, Martel… what do I do?” she mused before letting herself rise, then rest once more in front of the Spiritua statue. There was really only one thing she _could_ do--

Colette cupped her hands together, bowed her head, and prayed, and _prayed_ , and _prayed,_ until she 

felt

_something--_

in the sightless pit of her chest, tugging at her heartstrings as if she were an instrument of the Goddess. Then, she smiled.

There was little more than a voiceless silence that existed somewhere outside her own body, separate from the empty space the Goddess had pulled her into but, still, that same feeling of _reaching_ , of _tugging_ , of taking without tearing. It couldn’t have been anyone else.

_Martel._

Her ribs jerked forward in tune with a pull from Martel’s intangible grasp, until she found herself spun on the tips of her toes to follow where the Goddess led. 

“You want me to--” Colette mouthed with a soft frown, as if she were expecting an answer. There wasn’t one this time; there was no voice, no girl with spearmint hair, no endless void or bottomless abyss. Instead, her heart only beat louder in her chest, thrumming against the hand unraveling her at the seams, until something finally clicked.

_“You want me to follow my heart.”_

And so she did, chasing after the piece of herself that sat between the Goddess’ gentle hands through city streets and slums alike-- she knew it well. Palmacosta had always been a beautiful place, even before the worlds had been reunited, and Colette had lived as a symbol of peace for the people of Sylvarant. She’d traveled extensively through the flourishing world, inspiring hope in the lives of everyone she touched, and she’d never known that the world could be anything but prosperous. It was her job now, she thought, to keep it as such--

Perhaps the task Martel had entrusted to her was what she was born to do, the same way prior to the reunification she was to spread harmony through the land, then eventually to breed the next chosen in the image of the Goddess herself.

Suddenly, the grasp held tight in her chest released, like the whiplash of the glass box that confined her shattering against pavement. Her pace ground to a halt in the centre of the city, even in spite of the throb in her chest that beckoned her forward still, and breathed-- _in, out._ She was standing outside the Academy and its prodigal walls. Colette furrowed her brows in disbelief.

 _‘Why did Martel take me here?’_ she ruminated, thoughts racing, but surely they did not travel far. The Goddess would never keep her waiting. 

Surely, the door swung open, grinding against the stonework below, and in the empty space stood a woman with silver hair and the composure of one wise beyond their years. A half-elf, at that-- that much was certain. 

Something echoed and rattled in Colette’s chest as if they’d met before.

 _‘That’s it. That’s her!’_ Colette let out a shaky gasp as all the little pieces began clicking into place. _‘Martel needs me to talk to this woman!’_ The moment the half-elf began to walk away, the tug against her nimble heart returned.

Colette knew what she must do.

“Wait!” she cried, reaching out a single hand with fingers splayed in the cool evening air. “Please, I need to talk to you!”

The other woman spun, facing Colette with her tongue tied sharply within her teeth. She stood in silence with uneasy eyes narrowed, staring the former chosen down, wordless, before finally opening her mouth and letting a single word escape.

“...Yes?”

Colette huffed; if this was the ally she must travel with, then it was now or never. “Hi-- you’re looking for your brother, right?”

“What do you know of my brother?” To those less attuned to fleeting human emotions, Raine’s expression would have read no more than stoic. Instead, Colette found it far more akin to a fretting mother trying desperately to hide her worry. 

“I know this is going to sound crazy, but--” Colette’s hands curled, one over the other, and her stomach nearly cartwheeled. _Focus,_ she told herself. _Focus focus focus._ “I know he’s missing. I can help you find him if you’ll come with me.”

Raine smirked. “A bold claim. How can I trust a stranger who doesn’t even know my name?”

“Because I was the Chosen of Sylvarant.” Colette’s stature grew bolder by the minute, and her words more thunderous; it was as if the moment Martel had dug beneath her ribs, she had given Colette all the strength she’d ever possessed. “I’ll tell you everything there is to know about me, and I’ll tell you anything else you ask. But, please, you have to believe me that this is important!”

“I suppose any leads, no matter how foolish, are better than none. Come, why don’t you tell me what you know, Chosen one?” Much unlike her Tethe’allan counterpart, having her former title so flippantly cast in her direction did not make Colette wince. Instead, she even managed a smile.

“My name is Colette. I’ll tell you everything, so long as you’ll listen.”

“Fine, then. Professor Raine Sage, scholar, academic, and advocate for half-elven liberation,” Raine crossed her arms, exhaling her hostility until it subsided, “Why don’t we find somewhere to sit, then, Colette?”

A laugh-turned-sigh of _relief_ graced her lips. “Alright. Let’s do it.”

//

_“--os--”_

_"Zel--"_

A strained voice reverberated in Zelos' ears, and wherever he was, he knew he was home. 

Warmth against his cheek spread like a gentle flame, as if sound asleep in the only safe place he had left-- it was a tingle against bare skin woven into some kind of comfort that lingered, simmering, even beneath it. He found himself catching the hum in his throat with a smile still strewn across his face. 

Safety had always been an illusion; Zelos hadn't felt safe since he was seven years old and his father chose to die to escape the journey Zelos would one day embark on in his stead. Another uncomplicated casualty of the chosen lineage, and another handwritten entry in the series of tragedies that turned his world frigid. He could still feel the frost caress his skin the same way he knew the metallic tang of blood in his mouth, but wherever he was now, he felt _safe_. The little kid somewhere deep within him wanted to cry. He thought he'd sob, maybe, but he couldn't work up the tears--

Until he heard his own name lash through his head, and opening his eyes only burned. 

_"--Zelos."_

The moment he woke, Zelos found himself with the side of his face resting against Lloyd's chest and two arms coiled tightly around him. Both his wide eyes darted from side to side and clued him in that he'd made it back to the manor and into his room, somehow. 

"Are you, uh…" Lloyd moved to run a hand through his hair, "Are you back now?" 

"...Back?" Zelos said in confusion, and the single, tense word’s pitch hiked. 

"Yeah, after the Tower, you'd--" Lloyd stopped. "Uh, how much do you remember from earlier?" 

There was a split second where Zelos racked his memories for hints before sitting up and staring down at himself, looking at his bare arms made up of more crystal than they weren't, and then he remembered. 

Mylene. 

"That woman, whoever she was, looked just like..." An asinine snort of a laugh. "This stuff never used to bother me, Lloyd. I thought I was done. Cured. Whatever."

"You know," Lloyd curled an arm around Zelos' shoulder and pulled him tight. "I read, once, in one of those books they kept in Welgaia, that when something really hard happens to you, sometimes you don't start processing it until your brain thinks it's in a safe place. Maybe, now that the journey's finally over, and it's just me and you…"

"Wow. I could’ve sworn a concept like that might be a little advanced for you, hunny, but you might be onto something." Zelos' eyes turned to the canopy above. The idea of talking about this further, even with Lloyd, of all people, was _horribly_ unappealing. 

Lloyd smiled a crooked grin, accepting Zelos' jab for what it was before the smile turned serious. "You know, you've never told me that much about her. Your mom, I mean. You never talk about her." 

"I don't really think there's much to talk about." 

"Zelos," Lloyd's voice then became stern, and he reached to cup the other boy's cheek-- "with the way you reacted back there, I think it's time you talked about it."

There he was, caught like an insect that had scurried into a trap, and Zelos knew there was no easy way out without tearing himself away by force. Instead, he did exactly what he always did when it came to Lloyd, and he gave in. 

“I can still remember her words, but not her voice, at least not anymore. I still hear her, sometimes, but it’s just some jumble of all the things that are still left mixed with whatever my messed-up brain decides to use to fill in the blanks.” Each word grew more cold and detached until his voice was small, childlike. “What I do remember was her eyes.”

“Her eyes?”

Zelos’ lashes wilted before closing entirely. “Always dead, like she wanted to be anywhere else. And so cold, just like--”

He stopped abruptly upon realizing he was describing himself as much as he was his mother. Zelos shook his head and let his fingertips instinctively dig into scarred palms; he would not entertain the thought any further.

“I loved her, I think, even if she didn’t love me.” He laughed, though jaded. “I wonder a lot of the time if she loved anything at all. Maybe she did before she was forced to marry my father. I guess, in a way, her life was decided for her the same way mine was.”

Lloyd frowned and curled his fingers around Zelos’ until they relaxed. “The chosen system, the church, it really did take everything from your family.”

“It doesn’t exist anymore, but nothing makes up for thousands of years of whatever the hell they put us through.”

A knock at the door pierced the short-lived silence. Sebastian, Zelos figured without a second thought. “Yeah, come in.”

Huffing, a blaze of fiery red hair nearly burst into the room, and Zelos winced upon realizing his arms lay bare across his chest.

“Zelos!” Seles exclaimed with haste, “Lloyd brought you here unconscious. I-- can I do anything for you?”

Zelos’ hands fumbled instantly, trying to hide the enormity of the crystals speckled across his skin-- his body’s betrayal, sickly green like disease. He could feel himself recoil at his sister's gawks as strongly as she tried to hide them.

“It’s okay,” she said, even though it really, truly wasn’t, and they both knew it-- “when you came here, Lloyd told me everything. About the chosen’s sickness, about the new journey. You’ll be healed soon, I’m sure. You’ll find a way. _We’ll_ find a way.” 

“I don’t want you to have anything to do with this.”

“That’s too bad for you, then.” Her words were as much a command as they were a plea. “This is serious, you know. You’re the only--”

_Time stopped--_

Seles’ words were cut in half prematurely, and their moments of brutal honesty were no more than short-lived. 

A crack, and a splitting 

S 

H

A 

T

T

E

R 

rippled through the mansion, 

splintering through their ears and grabbing all three of them by surprise--

“What the hell was that!?” Zelos’ voice ripped out of his throat with such urgency, it terrified even him. Lloyd’s hands flew to the hilts of his blades.

“Sebastian is still downstairs!” Seles flew out the door, fleeing to whatever had caused the ear-splitting crash. Lloyd and Zelos followed suit, expecting nothing, yet preparing for the worst; there was no explanation that didn’t incite near-paralyzing fear within them.

Reckless pattering of feet down seemingly endless stairs, until they finally came to a grinding halt with a gasp.

“And just who the _hell_ are you people!?” A scream tore from Seles’ mouth, baring her fists at three intruders who stood, armoured, with their faces shrouded by steel helmets. Each carried a whip crafted of leather hide and kicked shards of glass from their way, clearly from the smashed and battered windows behind them. The central soldier smirked.

“Lady Pronyma of Cruxis ordered us to come for the girl. Now, if you play nice, we may _consider_ letting the rest of you live.”

 _“Fuck,”_ Zelos spat through gritted teeth, “You’re not taking my sister!”

Lloyd drew his blades and charged ahead, full-force and with boundless rage. He swung each sword in their direction with no intention of giving in. “I don’t know what the hell you want with her, but we’ll never let you take her!”

“Go to _hell,_ you creeps!” The moment the mysterious soldiers sped at her, Seles cast a beaming glow of frigid magic that writhed in their direction, turning everything it touched cold and glacial. It stopped them in their tracks, long enough for the chill to prickle against Zelos’ skin until he raised his blade as well--

“And what the hell do you want with her, anyway!?”

“Heh. Lady Pronyma needs a new body for the revival of Lord Yggdrasill, and clearly, you just won’t do.” _These must be the Desians Lloyd had mentioned,_ Zelos pondered in what little time he had left to think. There was no other explanation for their cold-blooded desire of vengeance or their tired plan to bring back their tyrannical leader.

“Not this again,” Lloyd and Zelos breathed in unison. They had already killed Yggdrasill once, and neither were keen on doing it once _more._

Before the onslaught could rage any longer, a voice called to them from the kitchen, shrouded in darkness, ever calm and collected even in spite of the chaos. “Please, step out of the way, Master Zelos.”

“Sebastian! Stay out of the way!” Seles shouted in return, her voice hoarse and shrill. The soldiers’ brutality proved exhausting, and just as grating as the back of their throats being shorn against sandpaper.

“Please, Lady Seles, I insist. Leave this to me.”

A flick of the wrist, and the moment Zelos blinked, all three of their assailants dropped to the ground, as if hit with a silver-bladed _sucker-punch_ in the veins of each of their necks. 

That hadn’t been far from the truth, really-- everything had happened so fast, Zelos stood in awe, doing no more than watch the blood bloom from all the arteries of each nameless, faceless henchman. Lloyd dropped his blades to the ground, both swords clinking as they joined the sea of red that flowed against the linoleum. Between the Desian corpses rotting on the floor and the smashed windows in their wake, cleaning up was certainly going to be a chore. Yet, that was the least of their worries.

Sebastian stepped from the veil of shadows, gripping three throwing knives between each slender finger matching the ones that protruded from the Desians’ necks. “I can assure you, this situation will be under control. I will tend to the mess. Please be at ease, Master Zelos.”

Seles’ breaths were frantic and choked off as she marched up to her brother and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, pulling so fiercely, their dumbfounded faces were inches apart. He could feel the vibration in her bones even through the tips of her fingers.

 _“Zelos.”_ His name came out of her mouth as a snarl. “Whatever the hell this is, this involves me now. I’m coming with you.”

He couldn’t stand to deny her any more than he could look away from her feverish gaze. “Fine. You’re right. Tomorrow, we’ll figure out what to do, and you’ll come with us.”

She released him from her iron grip and joined their faithful butler in scrubbing the blood from the polished floors of the manor. It had to be past midnight by now, and she looked every bit as exhausted as Zelos had been sure she’d felt. Before Seles turned away, she looked up at her brother with tired eyes and drawled, “Go to bed. Sebastian and I will handle this. I don’t think they’re gonna come back.”

“If you insist, little sis.” His voice trailed with fatigue in return, each word hitching along the tail of the last. 

_It will all make sense in the morning,_ he mouthed; Lloyd nodded in agreement before grabbing his partner’s hand and leading him back to bed. The moment Zelos’ body hit the mattress, worn-down from past lovers and one-night-stands, all he could think about was how it’d been his job since he was seven to keep anyone from dying, and the pile of bodies weighing on him, just like his parents, that were casualties of his own blood.

Sometimes, as he lay restless at night, he wondered if it would be better if he joined his parents, too, and that infinite question was what sat heaviest on him of all.

  
  
  


[Year 4062 of the Tethe’allan calendar]

The Chosen had abandoned two children upon his death, both created of the world’s own pollution-- his only legitimate son, one born of two who wed of obligation rather than love, and the other a bastard daughter of tainted blood, whose parents spat in the face of destiny and chose each other, despite all who stood in their way-- 

_Between Zelos and his half-sister, he had no idea who was more cursed,  
_ _but the last thing he could do was lie and say he never thought of it._

_It was a shame, really, that the Chosen’s bloodline produced  
_ _nothing more than two children who couldn’t look each other in the eyes._

The very last time they were genuine with each other, and Zelos was honest with anyone at all, was the day the Chosen’s mistress was escorted to the chambers in Meltokio’s prisons in iron shackles, waiting diligently for her own execution, wondering what her lover must have felt the moment he took his life, and if she’d feel the same.

Zelos stood next to his sister whose dead expression and empty eyes matched his own, hands dangling gracelessly at his sides as he crushed the only piece of his father he left within his fist. His chest heaved the moment he placed the Cruxis crystal in her hands and tried not to taste the salt of the tears streaming down his face.

_A symbol of my trust, little sister--_

He said with a voice that faltered. 

_I promise, it’s going to be okay, sis--_

She wasn’t the one who needed convincing.

Seles cupped the jewel in her palms until she could feel its heartbeat pulsating through her fingers, red like the blood that stained the snow that day or the tattered hair that fell in front of her brother’s eyes. 

_(He turned to leave, and the moment he turned his back,  
_ _he pretended not to hear her weeping.)_

  
  
  


The moment he woke from restless slumber, Zelos gazed down at himself only to see that disease had spread to his shoulders and the sinew of his chest, and he wondered if Lloyd’s hand resting gently against his skin could feel his blood run cold. Burning with frigid rage, he dug his jagged fingernails as deep as they would go beneath one of the crystals on his forearm, and _pulled_ and _ripped_ and _tore_ until it came out entirely, surgically clean, leaving a gaping crimson wound in its path. It felt like nothing at first, as empty as the hole left in his skin, until he watched the viscera _drip, drop_ and stain the satin sheets. 

At least that, if nothing else, was proof that for now, he was still alive and breathing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My aim is to update once a month but I also do have a career and a life outside of fandom, so you’ll have to cut me some slack if updates become more sporadic. I can, however, say I have a lot of plans for this fic and am very dedicated to seeing it through to completion. I look forward to sharing this AU’s Pronyma lore in particular. If you have any theories on where this story is going, I would love it if you shared in the comments!


	4. Stage Collapse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prepare for some intense chapters here on in.

Ugly angels spoke to me. The blame, I heard them say, was mine.

\- Anne Sexton

//

Genis would be lying if he said he wasn’t afraid, and he already knew he was a terrible liar,  _ especially _ to  _ himself. _

Mithos had taken Genis by the hand to guide him through the forest, as much as he could when he existed as no more than a phantom, and he felt something inside his body warm until it seared to a burn. The closer he drew to Origin’s seal, the more his thoughts devolved into something more frenetic, feverish-- he knew he must weave together begs and pleas to justify something to the world’s arbitrator he could hardly justify to himself. The natural response would be to spin on his heels and flee back to the village, but that would’ve been too easy, and Genis liked  _ easy _ as much as he liked lying.

_ ‘And what will you say to him, Genis?’ _ Mithos pried, each word punctuated against his pursed lips. Genis turned his eyes away and continued to trample the twigs between the trees, paying the ghost no mind. He’d nearly made a game of both those things by now.

_ ‘I’m assuming that means you’re going into this blind. How daring of you.’ _

“I’m thinking,” Genis nearly snapped in return, only to dart his hands into the grooves of his pockets and ball them into fists. “I’ll admit I’ve… never met Origin before. I don’t know him like you do.”

Mithos stole a glance back before he tugged against Genis’ Cruxis crystal, the only piece of him he could ever truly touch, beckoning him into the shine of sun through the trees.  _ ‘And Origin isn’t terribly fond of me, which is why you’re going to need to come up with a plan soon or risk losing your only chance.’ _

“I’ll think on my feet. I’m good at that.” Genis whittled his fingers against the shard between his fingers as if grinding it to dust; he took pride in the fact that all of those words were true, and he hadn’t had to  _ lie _ about anything so far. He couldn’t say with any amount of certainty that would be the case again.

_ ‘Then at least be prepared for that much.’ _ Mithos’ footsteps came to an abrupt stop when they stumbled upon a stone plaque in the hollow of the forest clearing, and Genis’ heels skidded into the dirt. 

_ ‘Because we’re here now, and I certainly hope you’re ready for whatever happens next.’ _

Genis’ hand wisped across the stone dais, running his fingertips across grains of ore and mineral as if looking for some sort of hidden clue. The least he could do was try to find something useful to do with all the fear rather than simply stand there blindsided.

_ ‘Call his name, Genis.’  _ Mithos’ voice rang through his ears, contouring against his every nerve in waves. The half-elf huffed a quick breath and obliged.

“Origin, the Summon Spirit of Birth,” his voice boomed through the forest, feigning a confidence he lacked. “May I call upon you?”

His words were met only with silence, and he felt himself shrink further with each passing moment.

“Please. I need your help,” Genis’ words grew sharper and more desperate in ways only the phantom at his side would have noticed. “I-- I used the Eternal Sword. It was my will that helped to reunite the worlds.”

His Cruxis crystal brushed against a dip in the stonework, a plaque resembling a grave marker more than it did a shrine to the world’s most powerful Summon Spirit. The gem caught in the groove for a second alone, rebounding through his entire body like an echo, until he heard the sound of  _ latching, unlatching, _ as strongly as he felt it.

\--click.

\----click.

Genis came to a staggering halt the moment a soft, metallic ring resonated from the gem on the back of his palm, and he peeled both hands away only to shield his eyes the moment the clearing brightened with a sharp gleam. Peering through the cracks between his fingers felt like staring into the sun, an overwhelming blight that cauterized until he forced his burning eyes shut.

“And what is it you ask of me, Hero of the Sword?”

It seemed his Cruxis crystal was what he needed to call upon Origin, in the end; the spirit’s words felt equally as unfamiliar as they did undeserving, for he knew he was hardly a hero the way Lloyd was and even less worthy of such a title. Still, he grinned and bore it, sucked all those anxieties inside him with a sliver of dread and doubt. What he couldn’t bear was to open his eyes and look upon the Summon Spirit himself, for he hadn’t planned what he would say next, how to explain his plight without coming across as careless and rash. All the words he could think to speak tasted sour on his tongue.

“Origin, I… I want to learn how to make a Cruxis crystal.”

Origin’s voice was flat, lifeless-- neutral as stilled water. Genis expected nothing less. “And even as the Hero of the Sword, what use do you have with such forbidden knowledge?”

Trembling, the half-elf finally lowered his hand to see a dubious being of great stature, a cluster of flesh and limbs flexing from the confines of his chest. And still, the half-elf found himself withering in Origin’s presence, his body passing from an anxious rattle into mere numbness under all the pressure.

“There is someone I want to see the new world, to live a life they never had a chance to. Is that… wrong of me? I promise I’ll never use it again, I’ll never teach it to anyone else. This arte will live and die with me alone.”

“You have brought the fallen hero with you.” Origin’s tone was unreadable, like words scribed in an unfamiliar language-- a mess of letters and syllables that made sense to anyone but Genis. He did not pretend to understand; he only carried on with the conviction of a criminal. 

“You can see him, then, right?” he finally brought himself to ask. He couldn’t lie and he never took the easy way out but the one thing he could say for certain was that he never backed down.

“I see all.” Another scripted reply, void of any and all emotion and feeling. “And how do you plan to justify this request to me, the arbitrator of the world?”

Genis’ heart lurched, for he hadn’t a single idea how he would continue. He pulled his body inwards, crunching his arms together to stop himself from quivering, and sifted through every string of words he knew to find something,  _ anything _ to say next.

“Well… you’re the world’s judge. You make sure everything in your power is fair. Everyone deserves second chances... right? Is that not fair?”

“Hmph.” Origin stopped, eyes vacant. He folded his arms, the tendons of each limb constricting against themselves as he moved. “There are times second chances are not fitting for the nature of the crime. The one you have brought before me sought annihilation and set the world on the path to destruction.”

The air around them tightened, and Genis felt each of his words turn to vapor the moment they were spoken. He could only say so much before everything began spinning. “Before he was a fallen hero, Mithos was righteous once. He can be again.”

“And what do you have to say for yourself, fallen hero?”

Mithos stepped forward and his brows tightened; he was open, vulnerable.  _ ‘I suppose Genis is right. My consciousness is rapidly fading, and I would consider righting my wrongs in exchange for starting life anew.’ _

“With the promise to redeem yourself, not only to me, but in the eyes of the world itself, I would consider granting this request in return. Are you prepared to do such?”

Genis looked upon Mithos’ sullen face and saw something change for the first time since Pronyma’s ultimatum, a kind of spite that withered into desperation, and with the light reflected back in his eyes he could see that even after all his words of apathy, he wanted this, too.

_ ‘Yes. I’ll do it,’  _ he said back, voice quivering with a vulnerability even Genis hadn’t seen before. For a moment, time stood still, nothing moving but the trees above as Genis, Origin, and Mithos’ ghost all lingered in silence.

“I see your sincerity the same way I see your fear.” The moment he extended his arm, Origin gestured to Genis, who wanted so hopelessly to draw out that fear no longer. “Should I allow you to utilize the spell, it will sap your very life force. No matter how little you use it, you will be sacrificing a piece of yourself that will never return. Are you prepared to be the first and the last in this world to use it, and to take this knowledge to your grave?”

“I’m prepared for that--  _ please, _ Origin! Teach me!” Genis’ voice began to crack, growing louder with each word until they culminated in shouts. 

Origin extended an arm and reached into him, clawing his fingers under Genis’ ribs, passing through his body as if no more than the phantom who stood by his side.

“Then I will grant your wish. Return to me once you have created your Cruxis crystal, and if the fallen hero is ready to make an appropriate sacrifice, I will create an automated body that will mimic a half-elven lifespan. Are you ready, Hero of the Sword?”

Genis’ breaths became frenzied, not daring to fight back against the intrusion, and he looked upon Origin’s eyes without terror.

“I-- yes,” he said, and found himself pulled into the white space.

//

[Year 4072 of the Tethe’allan calendar]

“Master Zelos.”

_ Zelos cocked his head upward to look upon his butler’s face; _

“What’s up, Sebastian?”

“The Church have requested we return your Cruxis crystal 

in preparation for the Journey of Regeneration.”

_ The Chosen reclined against Mylene’s chair, hands planted firmly  _

_ at the nape of his neck. _ “And what do you expect me to do about it?”

“Surely, you would travel to the Abbey and retrieve it from Lady Seles.”

_ Something cold cusped against his cheek, the touch of a ghost. _

“Just get the emissaries to do it. Can’t be that hard, right?”

“Are you sure that is wise, Master Zelos?”

_ He closed his eyes, only for the chill to seep through his  _

_ skin and infect every little piece lingering underneath.  _

“Just let her know that the Chosen sends his regards.”

The more he made her resent him the more likely she was to leave, 

the most pristine form of self-sabotage, so he was certain this choice was his alone; 

Zelos laid the sword to his sister’s neck but didn’t dare push down. 

He would much rather she walk away on her own.

  
  
  


“Dammit, Zelos, you need to sit still!”

Zelos winced as the needle and thread pierced his skin, winding his gash shut with the tug of a still-frail hand. “Pretty hard to do that while, y’know,  _ getting stitches in your arm, _ my dearest little sister.”

“Don’t  _ rip the crystals out of your arm, _ then.” Seles’ words remained flat as she stitched the wound above her brother’s wrist with the grace of a seamstress, weaving  _ in, _ then  _ out _ before pulling the thread taut. “I know you’re upset, but you should really know better than that by now.”

“Well,  _ now _ I do.” Another wince, and Zelos clamped his teeth together to stifle a shriek. “These things are like a damn hydra. You tear one out and two more grow in its place.”

“Well, we’re almost done, if you could just  _ sit still-- _ ”

Seles looped the thread around itself to seal the slit shut before knotting it into a dainty bow. Zelos stared down at his forearm and tried not to sigh, circling his eyes across the zigzag of stitches that filled the empty spaces between clusters of jade crystals. His body no longer disgusted him; instead, he felt nothing when he looked upon his marred flesh, and somehow, that apathy was far worse than any repulsion could ever be

“Y’know, the only two times I’ve ever gotten stitches, you were the one doing them.” Zelos laughed, letting his vision glaze for a moment before turning his head back to his sister. “What do you think  _ that _ says about our relationship, huh?”

“It says less than the fact that you spent two years only speaking to me through letters.” They could both feel the heat rising in her voice, until she swiped an antiseptic across his sutures and he let himself choke on a groan.

“Yeah, letters you never responded to even  _ once. _ That says more than either of those things, in my  _ ever-humble _ opinion.”

“Why are we  _ fighting _ about this!?” Seles shot back, her fouled expression beaten like an injured dog until she leaned against her chair and folded both arms in disbelief. “Look, I’m sorry I snapped. I’m just… stressed. We have things we need to do, important things. We need to cure your illness, and we need to stop whatever this Pronyma person is trying to do. That’ll only happen if we all work together, and that means me, you, and Lloyd, too.”

“I’m just tired, little sis,” Zelos reclined backwards, letting strands of his crimson hair graze against the grooves of his cheeks. “So,  _ so, _ very tired.”

The stale smell of sterilization and the sting of saline against his wound were the only things keeping him grounded while everything else came apart at the seams. Seles looked at him, and he stared back as if he were staring straight into the abyss; his gaze bore itself upon her and her upturned, pitying brows until even he felt uncomfortable. At least then, he felt something other than pain.

“Anyway,” he sat up straight once more, words flippant and dismissive in nature. “I’m going for a walk. Could use some air before whatever comes next.”

Seles frowned, and she cried for him the moment his hand rested on the door. “ _ Wait! _ Zelos!”

He stopped and looked at her as if she’d said something forbidden. She broke the silence before he did.

“I don’t know where you’re going, but I want to come with you. I don’t want you to be alone, and let’s face it, I don’t think you really want to, either.” Seles’ words were blunted, plucked of all their venom before they’d even left her mouth. “And you should probably change into something else if you’re going to go out in public, anyways.”

Zelos looked down at himself to realize she was right-- the crystals littering his arms gleamed on display for all to see, and his clothes remained speckled with blood, whether belonging to the Desians they’d eradicated or merely his own.

“Well, you’re not wrong,” he said in return before draping a leather cloak around his reddened shoulders. “If you want to come with me, then let’s go, eh?”

Zelos kicked a mound of broken glass from his sight the moment they stepped into the living room, shooting a half-hearted smile at Lloyd and Sebastian as they worked to patch the shattered windows and repair the damage caused the night prior. Each fragment of glass was a cracked and scattered piece of his broken home, left to join the rest of his damaged heart strewn against the linoleum.

_ What a sad, sorry life, _ he thought as he stepped out into the clouded sky and let cool air rush against his face. Each breath teased mist from his lips until he found himself shuddering against Meltokio’s autumn chill.

“C’mon, let’s go, Seles,” Zelos’ voice nearly bordered on a growl as he called to her. His eyes met the fallen leaves littered against the ground before locking in place, transfixed on all the orange scattered against perfectly-blanched sidewalks. Seles grabbed his hand and wrapped her fingers around his own.

“You didn’t say where we’re going. Care to enlighten me?”

Zelos shivered against the hide of his coat, feeling the way it tugged against the newborn gems on his shoulders and pricked at the skin surrounding them. Meltokio was growing colder, and winter was undoubtedly to come early this year. Surely, Zelos dreaded nothing more.

He took Seles’ hand in his, feeling the beat of her heart through their fingertips as he led her through the humid, fall breeze, his grip tightening the further they walked.

“We’re going somewhere I’ve spent twelve years avoiding.” His boots tapped against the cobblestones of the nobles’ district, weaving through whispering aristocrats and high-rise mansions with marble columns lined perfectly in tow. The moment they arrived, Zelos found himself collapsing to his knees; he couldn’t tell if it had taken more strength to hide from this place for so many years, or to give in and finally come back.

“H-hey! Zelos!” Seles’ voice pierced the air as she rushed to fold an arm around his back and hold his body upright. He trembled in her arms, raising a hand to tease it through his own hair and  _ laugh, _ of all things.

“This park here… this is where it happened all those years ago. Where my mother was murdered.”

Seles lowered her brother’s body to the ground with the grace of a seraph, setting him down to sit side-by-side against the dew-dabbled grass. She wasn’t sure whether to turn up her nose in some semblance of fabricated frustration or raise her brows in sympathy. 

“What’s so funny, then?”

“The absurdity of all, really. How I was always supposed to die, then I ruined my relationship with the only family I had left. I couldn’t see past my own stupid assumptions about what you wanted from me.” Zelos’ hand reached to shield his dampening eyes-- he mustn't let her know that those were tears threatening to fall. Before she could say a single word back, he continued.

“Do you remember when we were kids, before all this happened?” Zelos dragged his hand across his face, a futile attempt to hide his body’s betrayal. He was supposed to be the strong one; how pathetic this made him feel. “We used to laugh and play in the garden for hours while our mothers never spoke.”

Now Seles was the one laughing, at least, enough to alleviate whatever sorrow had grown between them. “Yeah. There was the time I ran into the rose bush and got scratches all over my knees from the thorns. Then when we played hide and seek and you hid in the cabinets until you fell asleep.”

“And then do you remember that night on the journey when I came to visit you? When I realized I was gonna die, and I came running like some sort of coward?”

The younger Wilder’s hair framed her frozen face as she spoke. “That was the first day you were ever honest with me since the day you gave me your Cruxis crystal.”

“And I meant it.” Zelos sighed, chest heaving. “Every word.”

“I know you did, Zelos. And… thank you, still. But why did you want to come here, of all places?” Her voice quivered as she spoke, thinking of the carnage her own mother had enacted and the life that she destroyed. He must have known this would only hurt the both of them.

“Ha.” He paused to run a hand along the withering fall grass, cold and wet from the humid air. There were ghosts of Mylene everywhere he looked. “Guess I just needed to remind myself that it was all real, not just something I see in my dreams.”

Seles tugged at his arm, fully intending to drag him back to his feet with no such luck. “Come on. You’ve made yourself suffer enough. Let’s get back to see Lloyd. That might make you feel better.”

A raindrop skidded against his cheek until it dripped and fell to the tendons in his neck, cold enough to feel like the edge of a blade. Before long he felt another, and another, each droplet drifting to the ground and splattering against the pristine cobblestones. He laughed, for he could do nothing else.

“Let’s go,” he took her hand in his and grasped it as if it were a lifeline. “You know how I feel about rain.”

The siblings walked back through the district of nobility and wealth, and both of Zelos’ feet dragged against the grain of stone pathways. Each step he wandered as if he were walking to his execution.

At least now, he was an honest man, most of the time.

  
  
  


[Year 4072 of the Tethe’allan calendar]

_ “Lady Seles, the emissary of Cruxis has requested you.” _

Seles held her breath as she opened the door, 

only to see an angel with azure wings staring back.

Kratos looked back with empty eyes,

So hollow they’d nearly sap the life from her own.

_ “The Oracle is to come next week, and we require _

_ The Cruxis crystal in your possession.” _

Something in her chest sank,

the final nail in her brother’s coffin.

Drawing the gem from around her neck,

she should have known he would 

not dare come on his own.

_ “As you wish.” _

Kratos hummed in surprise;

_ “You appear disappointed.” _

Part of her was,

The rest remained distant.

_ “If you would like to be useful to us, _

_ Then write to us and tell us of his journey. _

_ Surely, he would tell you, of all people.” _

_ You overestimate my importance to him, _ she thought.

The moment she opened her mouth and surrendered 

in full agreement with the angel’s pleas,

she realized that she should have 

known better than to say  _ yes. _

  
  
  


//

Raine’s lips curled in inquisition. “So you claim you can talk to the Goddess, then, Chosen?”

Colette’s footsteps thumped through the forest like a determined jackrabbit, turning her gaze from Ymir’s docks to the face of the woman at her side. Her brows turned upwards in some semblance of a plea.

“Please, Raine, you can call me Colette.”

Gently, the half-elf’s lips rose further to a half-sided smile. “I apologize, Colette. I suppose the formalities are unnecessary now. I’d like to hear more about the Goddess, if you will.”

“Martel was never really a Goddess, not really. She’s a woman who has seen too much suffering and wants the best for this world. But, somehow, I know I can trust her, and that feeling just...” Colette shook her head, blonde strands of hair wafting over her eyes in the wind. “It goes beyond me, and beyond her. It really is just that… a feeling.”

“Hmm. Anyone else, and I wouldn’t believe those words for a fraction of a second.”

“I’m grateful you took that chance.” She came to a halt at the dock bordering Heimdall and Ymir, turning to her right and exhaling a gentle breath. “Raine, I’ve never been to Heimdall before… would you lead me to Origin’s seal?”

“I suppose that makes sense.” Raine raised a hand and gestured to the huts of stone before her. “I do have a growing rapport with the Elder. Consulting with him first may be the smartest move we can make.”

“Alright,” Colette nodded, and she followed Raine like a baby bird would follow its mother. Having been raised in Sylvarant, she’d only heard whispers of a mysterious city of elves, the same way the other world was no more than a rumour before the Eternal Sword twisted both of them back to baseline. There was so much of the combined world she had yet to see, Martel’s pleas were as much of an adventure to her as they were a sworn duty of the mana lineage.

“You’ve returned so soon, half-elf,” the Elder approached, staff clenched firmly in hand. “Is there something you need?”

Colette clasped her hands and gaped her mouth open to protest such a crude welcoming, only for Raine to speak in her place.

“My companion and I are in search of my brother. I’m sure you must be well acquainted by now.”

The Elder scrunched his eyes into slits, leaving little room for any further semblance of emotion to peek through. “I would hardly call us well-acquainted. Your brother was here only a day ago in search of Origin’s seal. He used our facilities and left by morning’s light.”

Colette shook her head and felt her stomach leap into the pit of her chest. Martel’s hand reached into her as if she was transparent, and all the stray energy engulfed her. “Raine. We’re too late.”

“How do you know?” she jabbed back, fumbling a subtle step backwards and hoping no-one would see. She had no such luck.

“I can’t explain it. It’s just…” Colette stopped, pursing her lips. “It’s a feeling.”

Colette’s words ate at her, though Raine was neither surprised nor shocked. “Then what do you propose we do next?”

“I think we need to find the other chosen.” Her words trembled as she spoke, and yet, she still managed to conceal her true dread. Neither had any idea what was to come next.

“Lloyd and Zelos have been traveling together. I haven’t seen them in weeks. Do you know where they are?”

“No, but I’m sure that if we do, they can lead us to your brother,” Colette shook her head once more, before taking Raine by the wrist and leading her back to the forest from which they came at the whims of Martel-- “and I know someone who can lead us there.”

//

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Alright, well,” Seles folded both arms across her chest and her sly smile twisted to a frown. “Do you have any better ideas, then, Zelos?”

Zelos let out a sigh strong enough to shake the whole manor. “It’s not that I can think of something better, I just feel like storming the enemy’s base right now is both dangerous  _ and _ stupid. Three of us, who knows how many of them.”

Lloyd nodded in apprehension. “Seles has a point, you know. Right now we’re kinda… what’s the term? Sitting toads?”

“It’s  _ ‘sitting ducks’, _ babe.” 

“Yeah. That.” Lloyd beamed a silly grin, and Zelos followed suit shortly after for a moment alone. “But we can’t stay here any longer, and all of us know that. They’ve already tried to ambush us and we still need the mana fragment, which is in their hideout.”

“Exactly. We go in, we take the mana fragment, and then we take down Pronyma and any Desians in our way.” Seles’ fists clenched until the fabric of her shirt between her fingers threatened to tear. “It seems like a solid enough plan to me, wouldn’t you say?”

Zelos’ brow began to twitch.  _ “Stupid and dangerous,” _ he said in reply, even if only to stop himself from saying anything else-- and still, he knew as well as the other two that there were few other options, if any. It took little more time at all for him to give in. “But hey, what do  _ I _ know, anyway? If you guys insist on doing this, then who am I to stop you?”

Seles’ grip around her arms finally released upon Zelos’ reluctant agreement. “Alright, so if we’re all in, then what’s next?”

Lloyd then turned to face her, and something in both of them subdued. “Do you know how to use a weapon, Seles? We should stock up on equipment before we do anything like this.”

“Thanks to Sebastian, I know… the basics of using throwing daggers.” Still, her voice remained neutral. “I can fight with magic, though.”

“I can teach you the basics of using a sword. It wouldn’t be my first time.”

Zelos wrapped an arm around Seles’ shoulder, far too nonchalant for someone in his predicament. “Fighting alongside my dearest little sister? Never thought I’d see the day.”

“Yeah, because you never let me.” Seles’ smirk pulled tighter. “I guess I finally get to show you what I’m made of, huh?”

“Alright, alright, let’s go,” Zelos said, voice still breezy, before taking Lloyd’s hand in his and using the other to heave the leather cape over his shoulders to shroud his disease. The moment they stepped from the manor to the city, his face turned to stone, and he dropped Lloyd’s hand from his. A chorus of shrill voices immediately took them by surprise.

_ “Oh, Master Zelos~!” _

“Ah, now, settle down there, ladies…” he said back with a grin, faking everything down to the sparkle in his empty eyes. “What can the great Zelos, Chosen of Tethe’alla do for his beautiful hunnies today?”

“ _ Zelos, _ you have to be kidding me,” Seles snarled through her canines. Lloyd’s brows nearly touched in irritation.

“Oh, Chosen, it’s been so long since any of us have seen you around Meltokio! We were starting to worry you’d  _ never _ come back, or worse-- that you’d found a  _ lover! _ ”

Zelos turned away at their words, stealing a glance back at Lloyd’s near-pleading face before darting his gaze away in shame.

“Nah, don’t you worry your pretty heads. The Great Zelos Wilder has simply been on a journey through the new world! Every now and then, he just needs to come back and see his family, and...” He turned to Lloyd and Seles lingering behind him, then looked upon his admirers once more. “Friends.”

_ “Zelos!”  _ Seles grabbed him by the scruff of his collar, dragging him from the centre of nameless, faceless women’s attention to a side-street where her open palm collided directly with his cheek.

“I can’t believe you,” she said as she lowered her hand and watched his skin blister red. “You need to apologize to Lloyd, _right now!”_

“Lloyd, I--” Zelos started, only for his partner to intervene the moment he began speaking.

“Zelos, you do this every single time.” Lloyd’s fingers trembled, his fists opening and closing in displeasure. “You say all these things about how you love me, and then still can’t even be honest about what I am to you.”

The beat of Zelos’ heart welled up into the base of his throat, and all he could feel was himself choke. “Lloyd, I-- I need you to understand, those people don’t even like me for me. The person they like is just someone they made up based on my title. And I don’t know how to be anything other than that when--”

Seles snapped, dragging Zelos’ face down to meet her gaze all while spitting flame. “And if you can’t do it now, then when can you do it, huh? The world’s been reunited for a year now, and you’re still obsessing over  _ ‘Chosen this, Chosen that’?  _ Unbelievable.”

“I just want one part of my life to be familiar right now, okay!? Anything but another reminder that I’m a dead man walking!” He shouted back, only for his tone to devolve to something more akin to a crying child than a dignified chosen.

“So that’s what I am to you, huh?” Lloyd’s voice crumbled as he spoke, and Zelos’ eyes widened as he stepped forward. “Sorry I can’t give you your nice, normal life of being the Chosen and flirting with every woman you see on the street, then.”

“I’m sorry that this is the way I am, okay!? I’m sorry for being this way!” Then Zelos reached for him, only for Lloyd to turn his back.

“That’s not the Zelos I love,” he said, harsh as the exhale of his breath. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.”

Zelos’ reply was sharp enough to mirror the crystallization dotting his arms. “And I don’t want you to understand. I don’t want anyone to understand what it’s like living with everything I do.”

Seles had finally released her death-grip against Zelos’ coat, only for him to frown and walk away.

“Hey! Where do you think you’re going!?” she cried after him, voice scratchy and throat hoarse. The further he paced, the closer she drew herself to Lloyd before finally grabbing his hand and twisting her fingers around his.

“I’ll be back at the manor tomorrow. See you then,” Zelos called to them, his words reverberating through the alleys and city streets. The further he walked into the distance the more his silhouette burned red against the sunset, and Lloyd brought his other fist up to his eyes to shield his tears from sight.

“Lloyd, um…” Seles started, only to feel his hand tremble against her palm. “I know I act all tough around you, but I want you to know I’ve always been just as worried about him hurting you as I was about anything else.”

He wiped his hand across the side of his face, desperate not to reveal any semblance of weakness, much less the tears that had welled up and threatened to overflow from the corners of his eyes. He and Zelos certainly had that in common. “Thanks, I guess.”

“You know, Zelos and I don’t have a lot of family.” Her voice was cheerless, pessimistic. “Ever since the day that Zelos took you to the Abbey, I’ve considered you one of us. I hope you know that.”

“Seles…” Lloyd’s voice trailed off until distant, devoid of all warmth and feeling. Right then, it was all he was capable of.

He almost wished it would hurt or sting, just to feel anything other than hollow.

  
  
  


The moment Zelos took to the skies, his back strained under the weight of his own body until he felt that same shooting pain again that’d plagued him when he released the first seal on the Journey of Regeneration so long ago. Luckily for him, after a few clumsy encounters and the horror of losing the ability to feel, using his wings stopped being agonizing and more of another extension of himself, natural as walking or talking or lying.

For a while, he was getting better about the last one, but he could only hide from his own ways for so long; after all, a chosen is as a chosen does.

The moment his feet hit the ground his body gave out and collapsed against the dirt-- another feeling that was familiar in all the wrong ways. It’d been like no time had passed at all since the journey, or perhaps he was just reliving all the most painstaking parts of it, the same as he was with everything else that kept him up at night.

“Argh…” Zelos groaned in self-defeat, retracting his wings and feeling the needles crawling through his muscles and sinew all over again. Maybe, eventually, they’d feel natural once more-- after all, he’d hardly had use for them since the worlds were reunited. For now, all he could do was try in vain to wring the day-old blood from his clothes and scrape it from under his nails.

“Who goes there!?” a voice called in the distance followed by the drumming of heavy boots against toughened earth. Zelos hardly looked up, much less made any effort to answer. The unfamiliar voice spoke again.

“This is the village of Mizuho. Outsiders are not permitted here!”

“Still? Some things haven’t changed, eh?” Zelos drawled back, only to shift his body upwards and lock eyes with a blue-clad ninja hovering above him. “I’m the chosen--” he stopped, hesitating, before correcting himself, “ _ former chosen, _ and I’m here for Sheena. Surely, you can make some kind of exception, just this once.”

The other’s eyes drooped, their face otherwise shrouded by cloth and uniform. “What business do you have with Sheena?”

“I’m an old friend. Will hardly even take a moment of your time.”

“I suppose I can see if she will take a visitor. Stay where you are.” The ninja stared at Zelos as they reeled against the dirt, definitive as a line drawn in the sand.

In the meantime, Zelos was left to his own devices, and nothing could be worse; since he began traveling with Lloyd he was rarely alone, much less left to sit and think about how he’d riled his partner to the point of running, again, just by being himself. The second the thought crossed his mind, his eyes glazed, he shrugged the cloak from the blades of his shoulders, and he dug his fingers into the malignancy against his skin, and then he reached,

and reached,

_ and reached-- _

“Zelos! What are you doing here!?”

This time the voice wasn’t Lloyd’s, but yet another he’d memorized well enough that a year of silence changed nothing; he looked up, darting the hand clawing against his arm behind the leather veil once more. He glanced at the girl with the same ash-black hair and amber eyes he knew so well, doe-eyed and fearful. For what, he couldn’t tell.

“Sheena? I, well…”

She spoke first. “What the hell happened to you? You look like a mess.” Sheena reached to help him onto his feet, only for her face to pale at the sight of the arm reaching back. Neither dared speak of it. “Come on, let’s get you back to my place. Hell, you can even stay the night.”

He nodded in reply and she pursed her lips, leading him through the winding village before stopping at a shanty by the Chief’s residence.

“You know, you’re lucky you caught me when you did. I have some reports to finish tonight, and then I’m taking a business trip to Meltokio in the morning.”

The moment they stepped inside, he leaned against the adjacent wall and slunk to the ground. “Ah, that’s right. You’re in politics now, huh?”

“Emissary of Peace is my full title. I run errands for the King, work as a mediator between the higher-ups, document the world’s progress since its reunification--” her voice whirred like clockwork as she spoke, “All very important things. And you’re on a journey with Lloyd?”

“Yeah, funny thing, that’s what brings me here, actually.” He arched his back and tilted his head, and the sudden movements made a gem embedded in his wrist sparkle in the fluorescent light.

Sheena’s heart jerked in her chest until she felt it reverberate under her ribcage. The sight alone was gruesome.

“What… happened to your arms?” she finally asked, trying her hardest not to stare in shock and disgust. She was many things, but she wasn’t cuel.

“Same thing that brat Mithos had. Same thing he tried to steal my body for.” His eyes flickered away, but he could still feel her gaze burning against his hardened skin. “Angel Toxicosis, as they call it. That’s what me and Lloyd are trying to do right now, trying to cure it, but--”

He stopped and gauged his words carefully.

“But I messed it up. The same way I always do, and the same way I did with you, too.”

Slowly, Sheena frowned, and the tone of her voice hung low in response. “I’ll admit, Zelos… I don’t really know what you’re trying to tell me.”

“I’m trying to tell you I’m dying.” Each word was sharp, pointed, and they both winced the moment they left his mouth. “And Lloyd… he’s so good to me.  _ Too good  _ for me. And I just keep screwing it up because I don’t know how to be anything other than this same piece of shit I’ve always been.”

“Let me guess. You’re still choking under the weight of your old title, because you don’t know how to be anything else. And now, because of the disease, all the stakes are higher, and everything’s so much worse.”

Zelos stared back, brows furrowed. He couldn’t dream of disputing her, but still, she broke the silence first.

“We haven’t seen each other much since the words were reunited, but sounds like I still know you just as well as I always have, huh?”

“Ha.” Zelos chuckled and crossed both arms against his chest, obscuring them from sight once more. “I expected no less from my oldest friend.”

Her response was sharp, biting. “Then you already know what I’m going to say.”

“That I need to snap out of it and get myself together, yeah. Guess after today I just need to hear it.” He paused, then tried in vain to suppress a shudder. “You don’t need to be nice about it, either. Gotta say I deserve anything you can dish at me right now.”

“Zelos.” Sheena’s voice was stern and thick as gravel as she turned to face him from across the room. “The worlds have been reunited for over a year now. We saved the world.  _ You _ saved the world! If now’s not the time to drop the act and sort yourself out, then when is?”

He could feel a hum buzzing around in his throat like some sort of insect. An unpleasant sensation at best. “I guess I have to, now. I keep messing it all up with Lloyd, and I just--”

“You love him,” she interrupted, again, but Zelos couldn’t protest her words. After all, he needed this and he knew it. “And when you love people, sometimes, you gotta make those hard choices, whether it be changing yourself for the better, or--”

There was an empty pause in the room, wherein Sheena ceased her fire and Zelos dared not defend.

“Leave them,” he finally said when the silence became too much to bear. “Like what you did with me.”

She nodded, equal parts awkward and solemn. “And that was what we needed back then, right? Look, I’m not… saying you should leave Lloyd. I just need you to understand that loving someone means making hard choices, and that clearly, your obsession with being the Chosen is hurting both of you.”

“And you’re not the first person to tell me all this, but… I guess in the end, I still needed to hear it, again.”

The room went silent, save for the buzz of the lights above and autumn air whipping against the windows. Deep down, Zelos knew this excursion was no more than a distraction, and he was seeking a place of comfort he knew didn’t exist. Sheena then took the silence and tore it in two; he certainly couldn’t complain.

“Your hair is getting long again,” she said, and some semblance of emotion other than pain crept back into her voice. “Do you want me to cut it for you?”

Zelos laughed, though more out of precarious nostalgia than anything else. “Ah, just like old times. You’re really bringing me back tonight, Sheena.”

“Come over here. I’ll give you the chair.”

Moments later, she drew her ninja’s dagger from the pocket of her coat to rest it against the base of his neck, and he couldn’t help but shudder at such an unfamiliar sensation. Quickly, her fingers began gliding through his floral-red hair like ghosts, the shorn pieces scattering against the ground like rose petals.

He smiled, as the stray locks drifted from his face and some of the warmth returned to his cheeks. Sheena gave him the spare bed that night, even if he wasn’t used to sleeping alone anymore, and in the morning the two of them woke when the sun rose and continued to Meltokio, together.

Sheena was his oldest friend, the first he ever trusted, and the only one he’d ever let truly tell him he was wrong and  _ listen. _

Before Lloyd, of everyone he’d ever spent the night with, she was the only one to ever stay until morning.

//

Genis knew the Tower of Salvation adequately while it was still standing-- he’d even say he’d memorized parts of it during his brief time with Cruxis. The staircases that wound up to the heavens, the silent emptiness of Welgaia’s halls, and Mithos’ perch atop the world had all been burned into his memories like a brand. Its basement, however, still standing even in the absence of everything else, was nothing short of frightening.

Descending the steps felt like stepping into hell, and the only reason he knew he wasn’t was because Mithos still stood by his side and beckoned him closer even as his surroundings grew darker and increasingly more precarious. Finally, he was to meet Pronyma in her lair and tell her that he’d found a way, that a plan B did exist after all where nobody had to die.

If only anything were that simple.

“Genis. Have you finally completed the task I assigned you long ago, or have you come to disappoint me once more?”

Pronyma’s words bounced from the dungeon’s walls, a lethal echo of her thunderous, dubiously mortal voice. Genis fumbled his hands in his pockets before saying another word.

“I did it. Origin gave me the power, and he said he had a way--”

“Show me,” Pronyma snapped like the crack of a whip. “Prove to me that you’ve done it. That you can create a Cruxis crystal.”

“I-- I haven’t tried it yet. I haven’t used his power. But--” he paused, grabbing his blue-and-black getup by the collar and tugging to reveal the  _ scarlet-pink-crimson _ symbol Origin had imprinted above his heart, forever a reminder that this power was his alone. A grid of ten points, one for each summon spirit, all contained within a five-pointed star.

“When Origin taught me the spell, he branded me with this. It monitors my life force and acts as proof that I’m being true to our pact. That I’m not teaching anyone else… that this magic dies with me.”

Pronyma snatched Genis by the arm, and he felt the blood in his veins run cold as ice. The first time she’d ever laid a hand on him, and even her touch felt like snow.

“Sounds like you need to get to work, then. The Chosen and his band of idiots will surely be here soon, seeing as I’ve baited them appropriately, and they’re sure to be bringing the girl with them. With the traps I’ll be setting, they will never get away, and by the time they arrive, I want the crystal in my hands.”

“Pronyma! What are you doing!?” he struggled against her iron grasp, but she only pulled her fingers together until her nails pierced deep into his skin. “We had a deal! Origin said he’d help me! We don’t have to do this!”

Her clutch turned to a drag, and before long, he found himself being pulled at her mercy against the cruel ground.

“I found a way first! This isn’t what we agreed on!” Genis cried as he clawed against the hand that twisted around him, tearing him apart. “Mithos, help me!”

Mithos reached for him, only to pass through flesh and bone. There was nothing he could do.  _ ‘I-- I’m sorry, Genis! I can’t!’ _

Pronyma pressed her other finger against a button glowing green in the darkness, only for a magitech door to slide open with a swish. Pronyma pulled in all her strength to toss Genis into an empty room lit by no more than the switch that sparked red as the door shut, the smirking woman barely visible on the other side.

“You owe me a Cruxis crystal,” she sneered, before her heels clicked against the rusted magitech floors and Genis was left alone in darkness.

“Mithos…” he said, slumping his back against the wall and watching the blood  _ drip, drop _ from the newfound wound on his arm. “What do I do?”

_ ‘You have exspheres. Make the crystal, and then we’ll find a way out of here, even if you have to kill her.’ _

_ What if I  _ do _ have to kill her?, _ he thought with a pang of guilt before shedding such notions entirely and drawing the exspheres from his pockets. Each stone scattered in front of him, a myriad of cool blues that sparkled in the dim light, and he paused before doing anything else.

As twisted as it all was, he knew what he had to do.

//

When Zelos returned to Meltokio, he was met with suffocatingly cold wind and the threat of the season’s first snowfall. Frankly, he’d rather nothing more than to disappear.

The hood of his leather cloak shielded his eyes from sight, along with the single gem that had grown like a parasite on his cheek, hovering precariously in front of his left ear. His fingers stung with the desire to claw at his own face and tear the remnants of disease from the heat of his own body, but a single glance at the stitches in his arm convinced him otherwise.

He had far more important things to do, anyways-- like figure out what in the name of Niflheim he was going to say to Lloyd when he walked into the manor--

It was too late for that, anyways, for the moment he barged back into his home, they stood face-to-face and both men quivered wordlessly.

“Lloyd,” Zelos said with an aching heart, tearing away the hood shrouding his face and letting himself be seen for what he really was-- a scared, crying child who longed for nothing more than forgiveness. Lloyd shook his head, stray hairs flitting across his face while he shut his eyes.

“We can talk about this later, Zelos. Right now, we have to focus on getting that mana fragment and taking down the Desians.”

Zelos reached for him, letting his own arm fly to grasp at his hand or his shoulder or his waist or  _ anything he could _ only for Lloyd to walk away.

“C’mon, let’s go,” Seles nudged at her brother, and he recoiled at her touch as if it was poisonous. Really, between the two of them, he was the poisonous one; he never claimed to be a good person, much less a good chosen. Maybe Seles was or would have been, but never him. All he could say with full certainty was as they proceeded toward the Tower’s old site, he knew he had to fix himself or die trying, and the prospect of the exspheres on his body ravaging his insides until it sapped his final breath had never felt more appealing.

And so he

shut

his

eyes

‘Til the world dropped dead,

and when he returned, 

he found himself at the base of the tower.

And this time, it felt different. He couldn’t differentiate between himself and his disease anymore, his body no more than a mess of  _ has-beens _ and  _ should-have-beens _ and  _ flesh _ and  _ blood _ and _ crystal _ and  _ contamination _ and  _ never-should-bes _ \--

He laughed to himself as he descended those magitech stairs because nothing else made sense to do right then and there, anyways. Here he was, Lloyd angry with him, sinking headfirst directly into the enemy’s hideout, and standing knee-deep in his own grave by extension. It couldn’t possibly get worse than this.

When they reached the first landing before the staircase to Hell resumed, Lloyd’s boots ground to an abrupt stop, and Seles’ restless hand reached for her brother’s.

“Something’s off here,” Lloyd muttered; it was likely they were being watched, and near- _ certain  _ that Pronyma and her followers were expecting them. He turned his head back, raising his voice ever-so-slightly--

“Everybody, stay on your guard and keep as quiet as you can, alright?”

And then the moment the decibel level in the room raised, vibrating from the abandoned metal doors lined opposite the handrail from the spiral staircase, they heard a single

_ CLICK-- _

and all three of them drew their weapons in preparation for whatever was to come next.

As soon as they could blink the doors to their left slid open and from them shot a series of pointed daggers, gleaming even in the lowlights of the dungeon, only for Zelos to swoop directly in front of Lloyd and his sister. He’d managed to shield them from being pierced by feverish daggers with the hide of his coat; if he was nothing else, he was resourceful.

Zelos grunted as he heard a burn and a sear and saw light spreading through the shroud of his cloak, only to see the now-scattered daggers had torn jagged holes through the fabric and leather.

He reached to the ground, fumbling against the hilt of one of the blades like a curious imp, “Poisoned daggers, huh. You were right when you said something’s not right here.”

“Pronyma always specialized in all these terrible traps. She was really cunning, which is why Yggdrasill made her the leader of the Desians, even if she’s not a half elf,” Lloyd said, plucking one of the daggers from the ground and carefully pocketing it. “We should probably each take one of these, just in case.”

Zelos’ brows furrowed at his words, as if he’d just said something foreign. “Pronyma’s a higher-up in Cruxis and she’s not a half-elf? What does she have to gain from all of this, exactly?”

“I mean… me and my Dad aren’t half-elves, either, but to be honest, I don’t know. They kept me in the dark for all of this too, remember?” Lloyd then hesitated, locked in place for a moment alone. “Come on, we should keep going. There are still things we need to do here.”

Seles crawled out from under her brother’s arm and Zelos’ eyes scurried over the wreckage of his cloak, the fabric littered with incisions and burns. He scoffed quietly before tossing it to the proverbial wolves. “Guess this thing is as good as gone now,” he said before trailing behind Lloyd once more, footsteps teetering behind him like a bad case of stage fright,

and the 

staircase 

winds,

and winds,

and winds,

further

and further 

into the 

everlasting

torment,

Until they reach the bottom of the abyss, and someone, Goddess knows who in all the brimstone and darkness, stumbled against the cold, hard ground, only to flip a switch and suddenly, they’re not there anymore at all.

The shadows and frozen chill of the cellar had been replaced with white walls, identical to those of Welgaia that Lloyd knew so well, pristine, polished and without imperfection. Seles moved to drag her fingers along the magitechnology of their barricades, dulled nails catching against the grooves of the polycarbonate until she stepped back, as if frightened.

“Where are we?” The question was rhetorical, really, since neither Zelos nor Lloyd knew any better than her. Her breath stalled the moment she shut her mouth. Lloyd shook his head. 

“I don’t know, but it’s definitely another trap. There’s no question about that.”

“What’s the plan then, hunny?” Zelos asked, since it only made sense for Lloyd to spearhead this operation. After all, he was the one with the most knowledge of Cruxis, and by extension, their captor.

“I… don’t really know. But if I had to guess, we either wait, or we smash our way out.”

“Well, I don’t know about you two,” Seles’ hand began to gleam with the brilliance of ice magic, frigid against her fingertips, “but I’m not going to sit around waiting for something to happen.”

Zelos drew his silver sword, and his smile turned from artificial to unkind. “I’m with you on that one, little sis.”

“Let’s go!” Lloyd cried as he took hold of the poisoned dagger resting precariously at his side. His chest heaved before he plunged it into the wall, and everyone froze as the dainty, yet deadly blade scorched and cauterized the snow-white walls to a constellation of sickly greens and black. Zelos winced; he knew that gradient all too well.

Zelos then sunk his blade in the grooves of the barricades in quick succession, feeling the tips of his hair graze the back of his neck as his sword rose, then fell. He wanted nothing more than to be done with the cruel games.

“Oh, c’mon,” Seles grunted as she flung another incantation at the newfound cracks and crevices they’d created so gracelessly. Surely, it couldn’t take much more effort to smash through the barriers.

Quickly, Lloyd pulled his body inwards before one, final thrust of the dagger cracked the wall in two, watching it shatter into nothingness like the glass that scattered across the manor post-intrusion. Mere seconds later, the illusion faded, and they were back where they’d started in the void of shadow and hate at the bottom of the stairs. Pronyma’s vile eyes stared back, the only thing truly illuminated in the catacombs, along with the gleaming sabres of the two Desians at her side.

“I have you right where I want you, Chosen and his band of fools,” she taunted with a glacial voice and an even colder heart. “I knew a trap like that would leave you wide open and ready for me to take you alive.”

Zelos’ heart sank until his eyes glazed and he was no more than a body, nameless and heartless, pulled back into childhood at the gaze of Mother’s eyes.

“Why do you look like--” he began sharply, until he found himself unable to continue, choking on nothing, or maybe just on the memories that plagued him relentlessly-- then his own throat became swollen and hoarse.

_ “Zelos,” _ Lloyd whispered, coolly, in a voice that could have read as calming in any other circumstance. Instead, it only made him panic further.

“Why--” he said, lashing his hand to reach for his sword, only for Seles to pull him back and rasp  _ don’t make any rash decisions _ into his ear. After all, they were caught, like animals in an iron trap, and they didn’t dare let the metal sink into their limbs any further.

“Why!?” Zelos began to yell, his voice husky and guttural, until he broke from Seles’ grasp and darted up to Pronyma like a violent storm in his own right. The moment his fingertips dug into her shoulders, his words devolved into what little venom he could manage. Her expression was ever-unchanging, and that only made every second of it worse.

_ “Why do you look so much like--” _ he started, only to hear a

S q u e l c h

and feel a tightening, nauseating pain in his lower ribs.

She grabbed him by the hair, shooting sparks through his scalp at the near-shoulder length locks being drawn backwards so sharply, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see she’d pierced a stiletto dagger through his chest.

“Now, now, Chosen. You’ll get your answers soon. I can’t say much more about your fate beyond that, though. Now, please, take the others to the cells.”

And with that, he collapsed against her shoulder, vision going as dark as the abandoned space they occupied in this damned cellar. Seles and Lloyd struggled against the soldiers that bound their wrists, trying in vain to fight back any way they could before rendered useless. It was far too late.

“Zelos!” Seles cried, “Big brother! No!”

The last thing he heard was Lloyd calling his name and the sound of blood dripping to the floor before everything went black.

_ \--HER? _

_ Something in him still screamed. _

_ WHY DO YOU LOOK SO MUCH LIKE HER? _

  
  
  


Genis watched as the screen in his cell displayed every inch of their predicament-- the traps, their capture, their downfall, and soon, if he did nothing, their demise. His whole body shook and quivered as he brought his hands to his eyed and pushed, trying in vain to hold back his body’s own weakness.

“Dammit!” he cried, and the moment his fist came down, the exspheres he had splayed in front of him rolled and scattered against the floor. “This is all my fault! How could any of this happen!?”

_ ‘If you can create the crystal, I can help you escape,’ _ Mithos’ voice was hushed, subdued.  _ ‘But first, you need to use the spell. Do you understand?’ _

“I-- I do,” he stammered, before taking one of the various azure gems in hand along with the crystal shard. “I need to do this, don’t I?”

Origin had taught him the intricacies of the spell, how to charge his own mana and prepare it for sacrifice. He told him it would be the most painful thing he’d ever experience, that no matter what, he would lose a piece of his humanity. And yet, here he was, preparing to grab some little part of himself and tear it to ribbons.

His hands drifted together, cupping both crystals in the palms of his hands, and he charged the mana the same way he did before, only this time it shot itself right back and snaked up all his arteries like a virus, the feeling of freezing and burning all at once; he wanted to pull away so badly, he wanted to tear himself limb from limb with all the pain, and it all hurt so badly he felt like choking and everything burned and it burned and it burned and he just wanted to die, die,  _ die-- _

Until the moment it all stopped and Origin’s brand over his heart turned from pink to mauve, and somehow, it was blood running through his veins once more and not cyanide. He exhaled like he’d been holding his breath for a million years, and his body dropped to the floor like a marionette cut from its strings. He laid for a moment, simply breathing, until he reached for the gem that’d fallen from his hands and felt a heartbeat.  _ His _ heartbeat.

“But--” he stopped, looking down in shock and agony, as the shard was still grasped tightly in the other as if nothing had happened at all. Mithos remained a spectre seated gently at his side.

“This was supposed to… You were supposed to… Dammit!”

Genis tossed the Cruxis crystal across the floor, and shortly after, the only piece of Mithos that remained, only for the shard to bounce and skid, until it eventually tapped against his own Cruxis crystal, and it fu s e d--

A sick pulsation rebounded throughout his entire body in place of the burn, born from the crystal on his hand and crawling its way through his flesh. “What the hell just happened!?” Genis cried, tears streaming down his face from the absolute agony he’d just put himself through, and now his Cruxis crystal was throbbing and the shard was  _ gone. _

_ ‘Genis… I believe, somehow, you’ve done what you set out to accomplish, but not in the way you’d hoped.’ _

And the half-elf’s eyes darted around the room, frantic, searching for the phantom anywhere he could find him, only to realize that Mithos’ voice was a controlled echo through none other than his own head. His eyes widened, face pale with shock and horror and pain and anything else horrible he could imagine, and he felt desperation drag down his throat.

“Oh, my Goddess.” Mithos’ voice was inside his head, now, and it seemed that his body was now theirs to share. A hand cupped his mouth, and he wanted to scream. “What have I done?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve accidentally set myself up for a third installment of this series; anybody interested in a Mithos redemption arc? I’ve got quite a bit planned for him in this fic, and whether or not i’ll actually go through with it, i’m not sure yet-- but know the idea is there.


	5. A Glass Cage For an Animal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the change in tags and rating with this update. This chapter contains psychological torture, some violence and digit (finger) amputation. The description is not graphic, but consider yourself warned. There is also discussion of suicide and description of an attempt in here, which is somewhat more graphic than the aforementioned violence. If you can handle the warnings, this may be some of my best writing/prose yet, and the story really begins to get real here.

“he tells me he wants to die really slowly so he doesn’t miss anything. i tell him i’m not that brave, i want to miss everything.”

— Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

//

Tick, 

Tock. 

Drip, 

Drop. 

Zelos woke with the taste of rust and bile in his mouth. 

Everything around him was hazy enough to feel like he weighed nothing, like he was no more than one of the phantoms he dreamt of every night. Maybe this really was just a dream; maybe he was sleepwalking-- perhaps even delusional. Or maybe, just  _ maybe, _ he’d finally pushed aside the lace curtains weighing him down like taut wires and roused himself from a twelve-year nightmare.

The worst part of it all wasn’t even that he didn’t know where he was anymore, save for a dull fluorescence teasing at his eyes and the steady drip of water ticking like the manor’s grandfather clock. Instead, it was the idea that he’d wake up and this sudden feeling of peace would flicker out of existence forever.

He flexed his arms against his sides, only to pull and tug against something he couldn’t see, and that was when he realized that maybe this wasn’t some kind of heaven after all. If he really had died and left this world, then why did his mouth taste like blood? Did Pronyma--

_ Pronyma. _

Zelos remembered, there and then, waltzing up to her and grabbing at anything he could find, screaming until his voice broke and his throat felt like it was made of sand. The dagger she plunged into his side, and how the wound was starting to ache and sting once more-- and the moment all of this began to dawn on him, he jerked his body forwards, only for something at his wrists to hold him back.

His eyes shot open and some kind of cry lodged itself in his lungs; when he glanced around the room, he figured based on surroundings alone that he had to be locked somewhere in that damned basement. Wires bound his wrists and ankles to some sort of surgical table, and everything was white.

“Dammit,” Zelos breathed, talking to no-one but the voice in his head that’d concocted the idea that Pronyma put him out of his misery and he’d gone to heaven. Someone like him didn’t deserve that, anyways.

Not like that mattered to begin with. He laid back down, only to shut his eyes and focus on the arrhythmic sound of water droplets coming from somewhere in that empty room, and in that moment, he managed to convince himself that it wasn’t happening-- that nothing and none of it was _ real. _ He’d found tranquility in chaos before, and he’d do it again even if he had to craft it himself. It wasn’t his first time, and he knew it wouldn’t be his last, either.

_ (Water. Rain. Snow. Ice. Mother. Mother. Mother, come home, I’m sorry--  _

_ her hands were so cold. They were so cold. They were so cold. They were so--) _

The moment he reached in and crafted some fairytale peace Zelos felt another set of hands strike against his cheek, and he coughed and sputtered tiny specks of red against the silver table. The wound just below his ribs was deeper than it looked, and the hand that knocked his face against the metal was so  _ cold-- _

_ So cold. _

“Get up.”

Zelos would recognize that voice anywhere, the way that it clawed at all the delicate parts of his mind and could spark fear even into his very core. She didn’t sound like his mother the way she looked like her, but it all drew out the same response anyways. He opened his eyes and could hardly look at the woman staring back, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away, either.

“Hello, Chosen,” Pronyma said with a tone far too sickly-sweet for what he knew she was here to do. If his mouth weren’t so dry, he’d spit back at her. She had no right to look at him like that. No right to look like  _ her. _

“I’m sure you know why you’re here by now, do you not?” Her words were venomous in disposition, and a single sharpened fingernail trailed along his neck before scraping against the cluster of exspheres embedded in his chest. 

Zelos lolled his head onto the cheek that’d collided with Pronyma’s hand, feeling the cold metal soothe the remnants of pain. Even if he couldn’t spit back in a literal sense, he could damn well try. 

“And what’s your problem, huh? What the hell do you want with me and my sister!?”

He was met with a laugh.

“You took the life of someone very important, and now I’m here to return the favour.” She stopped abruptly, and the resulting silence was uncomfortable at best. “This dagger is not poisoned, but you’re lucky. If those from my trap had pierced your veins, they would have killed you. Now I get to do it myself. I suppose I’m the lucky one after all.”

“Heh. Don't tell me you're still on about all that garbage.” Zelos' lips transformed into a half-sarcastic smirk. “Mithos is dead. Gone. Never coming back. Afraid to say you're fighting a losing battle here. You'll never--” 

A nail pierced through marred flesh and stopped his words in their tracks. He grimaced at the sudden pain spreading through his chest and clenched a fist-- the moment he began to cast an incantation, the binds at his wrists dug into his skin with an electric shock, a jolt through his veins snaking up into the crystals on his shoulders. 

“The hell is this, huh?” he snarled, and each word caught against his split lip. “All this for someone whose body is in pieces? What does any of this matter!?”

“Your binds are arte locked. I recommend against struggling.” Pronyma shut her eyes, pausing when her fingertips hit the Cruxis crystal and Key crest resting precariously between his collarbones. “I suppose I've still yet to tell you who I am.”

Zelos shook his head, watching his own hair illuminate his vision bright red as it flew against his eyes. “Like hell you have. Why do you--” he cut himself off once more when she drew another dagger from her side and pressed it against one of the gems in his shoulder, as if she were waiting for him to make the wrong move. 

“I am not your mother.” Pronyma's eyes were cold like  _ hers,  _ but Mylene's were never once so evil. “But I am a descendent of the mana lineage, the same way that you are. I suppose you are less than surprised.”

Zelos finally looked back and her gaze was as cold as her hands, as cold as the smile on her lips, as cold as her heart-- he didn’t say anything in return because he couldn’t, lost and forlorn in  _ the blue of her eyes the blue of her eyes the blue of her eyes and _

**_(Squelch.)_ **

Zelos cried out in pain when the dagger slid through him like he was transparent as glass, and he felt himself  _ shatter _ when she dug her stiletto blade beneath the crystal and wrenched it out like a bullet from a gunshot wound. He knew that feeling, the one of reaching, tearing, and rending himself just like those letters he wrote to his sister once, the ones he never sent and ripped in two instead. The crystal she tore from his flesh made a tiny  _ clink _ when it toppled from the confines of his skin to the examination table below, and nothing was warm anymore. Instead, it was all so cold. 

“Stop,” he begged, and something in him wanted only to drop dead at the prospect of being strung along and begging so soon. And yet, what more could he do with bound wrists and the devil with a dagger to his chest?

“Don't you dare speak to me, Chosen.” Pronyma rested a hand over the Key crest once more, tapping her fingers like a song, and he couldn't tell how everything could burn so much when all of it felt like ice. 

“This Key crest… this little piece of ore… It means a lot to you, I'm sure. I would know.” Her voice was like that same lullaby Mylene once sang to him as she rocked him to sleep, somehow so sweet and so vile in perfect harmony. Her grip locked around his Key crest, and--

_ (Mylene's hands were so cold. They were so cold. They were so cold. They were--)  _

Those slender fingers that waltzed across his flesh grabbed and pulled at the ore keeping him together at the seams, and she reaches into him and she

_ TAKES _

a piece of him that'd nearly always been there, a part that the journey those years ago had torn away, and that part of his humanity he'd nearly forgotten writhed in pain outside his body. When his golden wings erupted from his back he remembered this like it was only yesterday, like he'd been sleeping from then until this very moment when the coil of emptiness in his chest began spreading through each of his nerve endings like a disease. He gasped, speechless, voiceless, as the Key crest was torn from his chest. Maybe something in him really did die there and then, if it hadn't already died along with Mylene. 

“You have approximately three hours before you can no longer feel. When that moment arrives, I place the Key crest back upon your Cruxis crystal, and the process will repeat itself.”

Zelos seethed in his own skin, his mouth uselessly trying to form words that didn't exist anymore. Pronyma dragged the dagger down his shoulder to rest on the next cluster of crystals embedded in his skin, and the pain crescendoed the moment she pressed down.

“I had another name, once, Chosen. They called me Spiritua. The final chosen to complete the Journey of Regeneration before you did, and the only one to ever fuse with Martel's soul.” Her blade was like the sting of a poison he couldn't rid from his body, and Zelos gasped until bile dotted his lips. She continued, unmoving and calm. 

“I remember the disease. Lord Yggdrasill saved me, much like he saved me from everything else. When Martel rejected me, he raised me from the depths of pure despair and offered me a new chance at life by his side.”

She turned the dagger from Zelos’ skin to his wings, a wave in her hand like that of a conductor's baton, and one the count of  _ one, two, three,  _

_ SHATTER--  _

“Yggdrasill made me the leader of the Desians. He crafted a Rune crest when the illness threatened to take me, just as it is you. Do you know what that's like, Chosen? For someone to pull you from hell? To create something from nothing?”

Pronyma's hands hovered menacingly over the opposite wing, the one she had yet to pierce with her silver blade, and she stopped in her tracks when Zelos' head lulled into a slow and steady nod. His mouth moved to form words with a voice that couldn't even whisper anymore. 

“Did you say something? Speak up.” Pronyma prodded at him, mocking him to the very core of his existence. Zelos' bloodied lips contorted into a single word. 

_ 'Lloyd.' _

She lowered the knife for a moment alone, as if she were to swallow him whole only to spit him back out, before taking that same hand and grazing it against his cheek.  _ (So cold. So cold.) _

“So, you understand, then. How it feels to be saved. To be forever in debt to someone for things beyond your control. It's almost a shame I have to kill you, isn't it, Chosen? Maybe I should have taken that boy first.”

Like the beat of a metronome, she ticked her finger against the Key crest sitting in her hand, then aimed the dagger at the fractured wings spilling against the examination table, and like a waltz, on the count of 

_ one, _

_ two,  _

_ three, _

it descended until the chill of metal tore through the pure, concentrated mana, shining gold even in the dim glow of the lights, and he wanted so badly to scream but she’d already torn the only thing from him that could make a sound. Emptiness trailed through his limbs the same way her finger trailed down his left arm, only for the touch of a ghost to graze the scar spilled across his wrist.

“Clearly, you don’t fear death, Chosen.” The contact of skin against skin felt so foreign, and it wasn’t fair that her touch could be so gentle, not when she looked so much like his mother. The moment he looked down, her hands turned to claws.

“If you don’t fear death, then what is it that makes you so afraid now?”

The dagger folded into his skin until Pronyma sunk her gilded hands in and a trail of ruby followed in their wake. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the blood that blossomed beneath his wrist, eyes darting upwards in some semblance of protest, and he counted the tiles on the ceiling on the count of

_ one,  _

_ two,  _

_ three, _

trying to think of anything else but reality’s harsh embrace. Tiles. White. Snow. Mother. Red. Lloyd. Lloyd.  _ Lloyd.  _

“Were you aware the Cruxis crystal allows its user to change their appearance at will?” 

He heard her voice echo distantly, a choir in silence. The words meant nothing to him when everything burned so much. It wasn’t until she leaned in close enough to slit his throat when his mechanical breaths stopped.

The woman above him brushed a lock of pale, blonde hair behind the frame of her face, eyes low and hands splashed copper-red. Those same, frostbite eyes looked like they longed to be anywhere else, just as he remembered them in every single memory and all the dreams since. Zelos’ eyes widened, pupils blown, and his lips moved to form useless words while each limb quaked in terror.

_ ‘Mom.’  _ The single word came out as a sigh he could hardly manage to finish. Even if his mind knew with everything he still had left that it was an illusion, his body’s reactions were automated, another means to his own end.

Her fingertips danced across his face, each nail now blunted and painted wine. A ghost trapped in a living body.

“What’s that? Do I look like someone you know?” she said with Mylene’s body, degrading both Zelos and her memory in tune. He shook his head to writhe from her grasp, burning and drowning and  _ freezing _ all at once, and he didn’t want to die like this, but at least if he did, it would be at her hands--

Her voice transfigured there and then from Pronyma’s cold, mocking, and cruel articulation to something more of an empty drawl, trailing the blood on her hands down Zelos’ face cheek-to-chin.

“Zelos, my pitiful son,” she said, and he flinched harder than when she’d struck him. All of it was far too cruel.

_ ‘Stop,’ _ he mouthed, gasping in pain, and the worst part was he couldn’t even tell what hurt anymore. Each silent cry was as small as the punctures littering his skin. He couldn’t look anymore.  _ ‘Stop, stop--’ _

“Is this better?”

Zelos didn’t dare open his eyes now. All he wanted was to create a home within denial’s thick walls, and maybe his raw, empty Cruxis crystal would kill him before she did.

He couldn’t feel his chest anymore, the emptiness inside of him winding down his shoulders like spires and creeping up the tendons of his neck. And still, he felt hot, ragged breaths against his cheek, another reminder he was alive and caught tenderly in the web of his own suffering.

“Hey, Zelos. It’s going to be okay, alright?”

And with that, all the roaming static in his body froze because he knew that voice, too-- so soft and sweet and  _ warm  _ that he wished he could cry. Instead, the corners of his mouth only twitched, because they both knew she’d found his unbecoming.

He seethed when he opened his eyes and saw Lloyd’s face staring back, bright-eyed and so full of wonder, and thought maybe, just  _ maybe, _ he’d died and found heaven after all. By looks alone, she’d captured him perfectly, so much that he almost believed the lie. When she leaned in close and kissed him with Lloyd’s lips and Lloyd’s tongue, for a moment alone, it was like rapture.

That was, until she bit down.

“What do you think? Do I taste like him?” Pronyma’s voice was back like a monster crawling out of his partner’s skin, and he shook his head  _ no _ because all he could taste was iron.

When she pulled away, she flicked his blood from Lloyd’s lips and her hands roamed down the ridges of Zelos’ arm before stopping at the knuckles on his left hand, teasing the fabric of those red gloves against them. Zelos almost wished the emptiness in his neck and shoulders would finally take him whole.

“Do you know the symbolism of the ring finger? They say it’s the finger for lovers, where the wedding band sits…” She drifted down to tap a hand against his own, and the dissonance between her words and Lloyd's face had to be the closest thing to true agony he'd ever felt. He flinched when she reached the ring finger. 

“The closest artery to heart lies here, beneath all this skin and bone. You can live without it, but it would be quite an unfortunate life, wouldn't it? And wouldn’t it be a shame if your own lover took yours?”

Zelos' eyes widened in shock before she continued. “Not that you'll survive when I'm done with you, but the least I can do is make you suffer, just as you did to Lord Yggdrasill.”

When Pronyma drew the dagger and rested its point upon him, hovering precariously over the third finger on his left hand, she smiled that same predatory grin. He prayed she couldn't feel his desperation through her blade-- if he had any semblance of a voice left he'd scream, tell her to stop, plead like a cornered animal, but instead he buried his cries in a suffocating silence until all the clinical white around him burned  _ red _ . 

Everything was red, now. 

When she pressed the dagger down until it broke skin, a  _ sob-choke-cry  _ welled up in his throat that only came out as a gasp, and all of it was so cold, so cold, and  _ red _ and  _ white _ and  _ blood _ and  _ snow _ and  _ death _ and  _ Lloyd's face shouldn't look like that. _ Think of anything but the pain, Zelos. Think of summer, of sleeping under the stars, of warmth and his Lloyd, not her, anything but her, until it all began to

fade

out, 

and he

R  
E  
A  
C  
H  
E  
D, A  
N  
D H   
E R  
E  
A  
C  
H  
E  
D,

until he found that spot in the back of his head where everything went numb, and there was no pain because there was no  _ anything at all _ . Maybe she really had taken his life. Maybe this was heaven. Maybe this was happiness. If emptiness was happiness, then he'd never been happier in his life. 

Zelos sat in the void outside his own body, feeling the kind of numb nobody but a Chosen could ever know; he stared into the empty darkness, disconnected from whatever was going on beyond the veil of his own mind, blind to her taking him apart surgically. None of it mattered. All he had to do was exist, here, in his very own emptiness, until Pronyma eventually took his life, and then it would all fade to black at last. 

“Zelos.”

The name pounded through his skull like the beating of a drum, something so foreign here in the only safe place he had left. Someone called his name, again, another rattle and patter, until he tore his gaze upward and looked with horror upon the face staring back. 

“Father?” he asked, only for the other man to smile without warmth and Zelos to recompose.  _ “Chosen,” _ he corrected himself, even if only out of spite. 

Undoubtedly, it was him, just as Zelos remembered-- a man of his same stature with identical crimson hair and a permanent grimace gracing his lips.  _ Father-Chosen-Aslan _ looked just as he did the day of his demise, decked in the same gold and brilliance Zelos once wore the day the oracle came for him. Just as pathetic and hopeless as the day his carrion body was left to rot in the rain. None of it felt different from another illusion. If she'd taken him, then there was no way this was heaven after all. When his father reached to tip Zelos' chin up and let their eyes meet, Zelos donned a scowl to match. 

“If you're here, guess she sent me to hell where I belong.” He swatted at Aslan's grasp with a foreign sense of guilt blooming in his chest. “This is my world. You're not supposed to be here.  _ Nothing _ is supposed to be here. Just me, myself, and I, until that knife comes down and ends it all for good.”

The man hovering above him looked down with solemn eyes, just as he looked down upon his son in life. Somehow, Zelos could hear the weary smile in his ragged, husky voice when he spoke the words  _ “You look just like me now,” _ and dropped his arm to his side. The scars stretched across both his wrists nearly shone in the darkness around them, ivory-white to match the one Zelos inflicted upon himself.  _ The one Pronyma had--  _

“So, what, am I finally dead, then? Or did my  _ wonderful _ Father come to do the honours of making the killing blow?” his words were mocking, tantalizing, because to him that's exactly what his goddamn subconscious was doing by showing him such a cruel fabrication, surely meant to wrap its claws around his heart once more. A joke without a punchline. Where was that happiness, again? 

“You're not dead, Zelos. There is far too much that must be done for you to die yet.” Each syllable was no more than a familiar punishing sound, one that burned against his ears until there was nothing left. Those platitudes made him so sick he felt as though he'd retch at his Father's feet. And still, Zelos pushed him on. If this really was a joke, he wasn't laughing yet. 

“What's it feel like to die, huh? At least tell me that much, Dad. You knew what you were passing off to me, and you did it anyways!” Once the words left his mouth they wouldn't stop, an oil slick spread over salt-scented waters that doomed everything it touched. Aslan's face lay still. 

“Death is peace,” he finally said, after a pause that may as well have lasted a thousand years. “It feels like nothing. Far less cruel than life ever was.”

Zelos bit back, just as he always did. “And that's why you left us, huh? Two kids and a world to save, and you left it all behind. Some Chosen you were.” He breathed in another shallow breath, only to exhale  _ “Some father you were,” _ along with it. 

Aslan's hands remained unsteady as he talked, fidgeting with the sea-green cuffs identical in colour to the crystals strewn across his son's skin. “I could never have been what they were asking of me. But you were, Zelos. You were, and you are. And that's why you can't die yet.”

The moment he raised his hand, it began glowing with mana in some sort of statuesque elegance juxtaposed only by such a sad, sorry man performing it. Aslan hesitated carefully in silence, only for Zelos to see his father’s lower lip was raw and bloodied the same way his own was. Like father, like son; now _ there _ was a joke he could laugh at. 

“When you dispel this illusion and return to reality, don't look anywhere but up, and get ready to kick as hard as you can. Do you understand?”

Zelos nodded with an instinctual ease. He'd cheated death before, and maybe this time, with any luck, it would be just as simple.

“Dad,” he spoke, quiet enough he almost wondered if the words had even left his mouth. "I never thought I'd say it, but--" 

And

he

stopped, 

only

to--

"DO YOU FEEL AS PATHETIC AS YOU LOOK, CHOSEN?" 

His final words to his pitiful father were cut short by Pronyma's voice, loud and clear as the buzz of fluorescent lights flickering above his head, and he felt his arm quaking in pain in perfect cadence with the  _ drip, drip _ of his life's blood falling to the floor. He had to do something. Aslan told him to. Focus, Zelos.  _ FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS. _

_ ‘Don't look anywhere but up--’ _

The binds at his ankles were gone, and he had no idea how, but nothing made sense anymore, save for the bliss of sinking back into darkness. But he couldn't let that happen. He couldn't die. Not yet. Focus. FOCUS. 

_ ‘--and kick as hard as you can.’ _

Zelos' eyes shot open, blinding himself in the tainted whites of the light above him,  _ DON'T LOOK ANYWHERE BUT UP, _ flexing his fingers and feeling only four,  _ KICK AS HARD AS YOU CAN, _ the shock and horror and pain of something missing,  _ KICK AS HARD AS YOU CAN KICK AS HARD AS YOU-- _

And he did, until the sole of his boot collided harshly with her jaw, a strong enough impact to shatter the illusion and drop the Key crest in her hand until it bounced against the ground on the count of  _ one, two, three. _ He tore himself from each of his binds until the executioner's table was littered with tiny bloodstains, as if no more than shards of broken glass.  _ Don't look down, Zelos. Don't look at your hand.  _ He bunched it in the confines of his dirty, stained shirt while Pronyma recoiled against his blows, and before long he was on unsteady feet again, chasing after the tiny ore that was the only salvation he had left. Everything  _ hurt. _ Everything hurt so badly he thought he'd die, but he _ couldn't. _

Not yet. 

_ Not yet.  _

When Zelos took the Key crest in his palm he didn't even bother to place it on his chest, because any moment spent dawdling was another closer to his demise. Pronyma had already swatted the sea-green hair from her eyes and picked the dagger from the floor, and if he didn’t choose to ignore the blood and acid eating into his palm and  _ run, _ she would surely pierce his heart.

Don’t think, Zelos. Just run.  _ RUN. _

The adrenaline had hit by now, prickling against the hairs on his neck that could still feel, and he kicked at the door with the thrum of a  _ thud-thud-thud _ against metal that was just as cold as everything else. When it slid open at last, he jumped from the cutting room floor on unsteady feet until he nearly toppled to the stairs below. Don’t think. Just run. Just  _ RUN-- _

But his step fumbled against the rust and grime of the spiral staircase, and the Key crest slipped from between his fingers, and the hand clenched in the grasp of his shirt shot out only for him to see the empty space where the finger of lovers once lay-- and the moment he opened his mouth to cry or scream in vain, he

fell 

down,

and

down, 

and

down,

and

When he tried to use his wings to soften the blow of metal against aching flesh and blood, they only fluttered uselessly along his back, each fragment of sunset mana shattered like a silver bullet through a wicked heart. She’d undone him with hissing disdain using no more than her shining blade and lies that turned the air in his lungs to tar.

_ Focus, Zelos-- don’t look at your hand and _

_ don’t _

_ look _

_ down _

Until his head slammed against the ground at the bottom of the abyss, shrouded in heavy darkness that would have burned his retinas if he could still feel even that much. He fumbled in desperation, searching for the Key crest he’d lost along the way, until his fingers scrambled against what could only have been that tiny piece of metal-- he reached with his scabbed hand, painless, because now there was  _ nothing there _ instead. When he heard a  _ clink _ and looked down to see his Key crest split in two, his heart stopped then and there. A voiceless laugh laced with lead tore from his lips. He was as good as dead.

_ Ha. _

_ Ha ha ha. _

A sharp bang and bellow broke Zelos from his misery, and when he recognized the voice it belonged to his brain short-circuited entirely. Another bang--

“Let me out, you  _ creeps!  _ I know you’re out there!”

And another.

Seles. She was still here. If he could save her, and Lloyd, too--

He shot upward at such a speed all the blood in his body flowed backwards, clutching the broken Key crest in the palm of his hand. He had to find her. If he did nothing else right, he had to do this.

Zelos’ feet scurried against the ground like the patter of rain, following the cadence of his sister’s voice until it drew nearer, and by the time he arrived at some semblance of a cell, he could say that if he still felt nothing else, he felt _ fear. _

“Give me my brother back! Are you listening to me!?”

He had to break down the door. He had to save them. No way out but up. Take that desperate, squirming insect of a feeling and crush it beneath his heel.

When he kicked the door in and Seles saw her brother’s pale face staring back, she gasped with bright eyes until grief sank its teeth in and both siblings were no more than a mess of tears. The moment she grabbed him by the shoulders so their eyes met, they both shook until Zelos’ gaze slipped away as if he wasn’t even there.

“Zelos… you’re bleeding everywhere! What--” Seles started before her voice contorted to an ugly sound. “Your hand-- let me heal you! You can’t die! I won’t let you!”

Zelos felt his eyelids droop, and it was like something had stolen all the breath from his lungs. He shook his head.

“Say something!” Seles cried, pleading at nothing but his sunken eyes and empty space. She shook him again. “Big brother, say something!”

Slowly, he unclenched his fist to reveal his Key crest, cleaved in two. His mouth was so, so dry. If he could feel nothing else, he could feel how every word he wanted to speak splintered up to the tip of his tongue before dying there, forever.

“No,” she shook her head, left, then right. Back, then forth.  _ One, two, three. _ “This can’t be happening! Give me that!”

Seles finally snatched the shards from his grasp, one hand faltering against the Key crest and the other thrumming mana into her brother’s palm; at the very least, the bleeding was starting to slow to a halt. She pressed the shards against his Cruxis crystal, hoping maybe at least one would still fit, all these little pieces of him that made him a human being or something more. Zelos gasped back when at least one of the fragments aligned, enough for him to realize he was holding his breath.

“Little sis,” he rasped against his own heavy tongue. It still felt like he was being weighed down by the entire world, or falling in slow motion; what was left of his Key crest still contained enough of the transformation to scrape words from his mouth and a dull pain to crawl up his hand, stemming from the empty space where his ring finger once lay. She pulled him into her arms as she channelled mana from her own body to his, and neither tried to think about how they were on borrowed time.

“Lloyd… where’s Lloyd?” he asked her, voice still vague and blurry, and he felt so much like a fool when she only answered with silence.

“She’ll kill me,” he said, grasping at Seles’ dress to pull her closer, “She’ll kill me, then she’ll kill Lloyd, and then take your body… we need to find him, and leave--”

If there really were a Goddess, she’d shined something down upon them when the siblings heard a  _ CRASH _ at the door.

“Hey!” a familiar voice called to them, sudden, abrupt, and shrill. “You guys want to get out of here, then you need to listen to me,  _ right now!” _

Zelos’ chest heaved as he whipped his head around, seeing red all over again as his hair tore across his vision. Genis stood in the doorway, nearly gasping for air-- had he been running?-- and the fists balled at his sides began to shake.

“I’ll get you out. I don’t know where Lloyd is-- but I’ll find him, and I’ll get him out too. Promise. But right now, you two need to run as fast as you can, do you hear me!?”

Seles stood and dragged her brother to his feet along with her, having wrapped fragments of her dress around his battered hand and then following where Genis led. Neither chose to question why or how he was there, because any hesitation and their lives were sure to be lost. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Genis muttered at the ground as if lost in thought, and neither of the siblings paid that mind, either, because all they wanted was to _ flee. _ Luck proved to be on their side, as Pronyma was nowhere in sight.

“Go!” Genis screamed, tearing the single word from his throat. “You need to go, before it’s too late!”

“Lloyd,” Zelos said back, the words grating against his throat as the fractured Key crest struggled to keep his heart beating. “Without him, I can’t--”

“I’ll save him, I promise! Just  _ run! _ ”

The siblings fled, as though birds seeking shelter in a storm; Genis shielded them with his own body that Pronyma would not dare touch.

“Genis, you  _ traitor, _ ” her voice thundered from the depths of the cellar, cloaked in shadows, until she finally stood face-to-face with the miscreant himself.

“First, you give me a faulty Cruxis crystal, then you let our captives escape! Tell me now,  _ where-- _ ” she stopped to grab him by the collar and pull his face close, “is Yggdrasill’s soul?”

Genis darted his head upwards, scanning through stairways and magitechnology until he was certain the Chosens had made their escape. By the time the echo of footsteps had faded out of existence, he smirked and raised his hand until Pronyma could see the gleam of her eyes in his Cruxis crystal. He spoke like he was denying an apology.

“He’s in here. And if you want to do anything about it, then you’re gonna have to listen to me this time.”

For once, he truly had outwitted her, and the symphony came to a close.

//

When Seles heaved her brother over her shoulder, they retreated back to the manor, for nowhere else could be home without Lloyd and it was the safeset they’d ever be. When the siblings arrived at the towering mansion, Zelos collapsed to the floor, and Seles did not dare move him when she bandaged and tended to his hand. He still couldn’t look, couldn’t face another piece of him that was missing now, so he reached back into his head, closed his eyes, and let himself

fade

out. 

In the depths of the white space, Zelos thought to his mother, colder in life than she ever was in death, and then to his father, whose blood splashed in his wake like wings while his withering body decayed.

The only thing that still connected them was pain. 

  
  
  


Seles was asleep at his side when he woke, covered in tattered bandages and puncture wounds, the images burned into his mind of his mother and his own blood and _ Lloyd _ that he could never unsee. When his mind cleared enough for the world to stitch itself back together, he found his sister had wrangled him into his own bed at some point and curled up beside him the same way they once did as children. When he drawled himself from the silk sheets, she did not rouse.

Zelos winced when he finally looked at his hand, really  _ looked,  _ soaked in the image of four fingers and glaring empty space, and he winced again when a single move tugged the stitches. He was still wearing the same torn and frayed clothes in which he’d arrived, bloodstains and all; Pronyma likely knew they’d return here, and it wouldn’t be long before she sent anyone she could to finish the job. They’d carry on tomorrow wherever possible, pack their own respective bags and not look back until they found Lloyd-- but tonight, all he could do was descend the stairs, push the garden doors ajar, and collapse himself at his parents’ graves with black eyes and bruised hands.

“So you really came to visit me, huh, Dad?” he said to no-one in particular, scorning each word until the title at the end culminated in a scowl. “Why should I live when I don’t deserve to, huh? Who knows if Lloyd’s even alive anymore!? Why did you _ save me!?” _

Zelos had no idea whether it truly was his father who’d cut his binds, but the difference between them was Zelos couldn’t save anyone this time. The only comfort he could find in that fact was that him and the make-believe Goddess certainly had that in common. He cast a flickering glance to the headstones that stared back, blazed right from their petrous eyes and into the crooks of each of his sins. Even in death, his parents mocked him.

“Death feels like nothing, huh?” Zelos whispered and hissed, shoving cracked, bloodstained hands into his pockets and wincing at the touch of the poisoned dagger still resting there. He’d forgotten about it in all the chaos-- and to think, this alone could easily have been the one, single thing to mutilate him, to carve him to ribbons with its toxins that blistered and seared. With glassy eyes, he drew the dagger from its makeshift sheath and toyed with it in the palm of his right hand. None of it was real enough for him; the torture, losing Lloyd, the toxicosis-- he could almost hear Mylene’s voice again that Pronyma had bastardized so perfectly, whispering  _ my pitiful son  _ into his ear _. _

Seles had stitched his wrist, too-- a newfound scar to cover the one Pronyma had torn open until he bled a garden of roses from the wound. It took a single second of contact with the cancerous blade for the thread to dissolve, and even less for him to push it into the reopened lesion until he fell into spasms. The pain snaked up his arm like the vines that wove their fibers around his parents’ tombs, but perhaps the most overwhelming feeling was that of raindrops dotting the cobblestone and ricocheting from the crystals on his arms.

_ ‘Don’t be sad-- I’m dead already,’ _ was the last thing he thought before he became intimately aware of his heart beating in three-four time,  _ one, two, three _ turning to  _ onetwothree _ until it faded to _ one _

_ two _

_ three, _

and the symphony came to a close for him, too--

Zelos collapsed his body to the ground. There was nothing that dagger could do to him that the rest of the world hadn’t done already.

  
  
  


[year 4057 of the Tethe’allan calendar]

_ Do you fear death, Chosen? _

No, I could never-- for it is the fate of Chosen like me.

_ (a sick little lie that he’d rehearsed so well, _

_ and yet, if he were to accept the truth, _

_ he really would have nothing left, wouldn’t he?) _

The day the oracle came, Aslan dressed in his finest clothes to be led to slaughter, the fateful journey to turn him from the world’s beacon of hope to the Goddess’ marionette. After all, a Chosen must be beautiful, and a chosen must entertain;

**(AND A CHOSEN IS…)**

The priests were waiting outside the manor as they awaited the emissaries from the  _ protectors-rulers-destroyers _ of the world--  _ (The Chosen never made it that far.) _

When he kissed his son on the forehead and ruffled a hand through his satin hair, he proceeded to the kitchen, poured himself the finest of wines and reclined against Mylene’s ornate chair. He drew the fateful dagger that would take his life, _ (as if he ever really lived one at all--) _

And waited in 4/4 time to put his body to rest.

“What a bother,” Mylene scowled, overwhelmed with pity as she saw her loveless groom crawling toward the garden with bloodied wrists that stained the linoleum rose-red; she wore a scowl for a moment alone as she debated whether to save him or let him rot. The moment she turned her back, she chose the latter, until she waltzed away and his carrion body slept rotting among the roses.  _ (Just like one day, the same would happen to her.) _

Aslan’s last thought before the life left his body was that he chose to die for himself to keep himself from dying for the world.

The only way out of death was death.

**_(--AS A CHOSEN DOES.)_ **

  
  
  


When Zelos came to, the present didn’t feel like the present anymore, just some jumbles of half-realities that made sense individually, but never together. Maybe it would help if Zelos could open his eyes, but both lids had been cemented shut with the weight of sleep, and exhaustion, and  _ pain. _ His hand hurt, his wrist hurt, his chest ached, dull echoes of agony that grew stronger alongside his still-beating heart. And still, when he woke, he took in a sharp breath of air, only for his chest to ache even more.

“Oh, Aslan…” 

A woman’s voice rang from above him, sunshine-charming even as he winced upon hearing his father’s name.

“You must have known that poison would kill you. You’re lucky this kind young lady was able to get you here so quickly.”

_ That’s not my name, _ he wanted to say--  _ Who are you, _ he wanted to ask.  _ Why am I here, why am I anywhere, am I even alive-- _ but he did not dare.

Instead, he coughed, and he tasted bile on his tongue all over again the moment he did. Carefully, a warm cloth came to rub whatever he’d just expelled from his lips; when he finally opened his eyes, he saw his sister, red-eyed with tension high in her frame-- then bandages and more bandages, a bed that looked like a gurney, and a woman garbed in forest-green with silver hair falling just past her shoulders.

“Who are you?” Zelos finally managed to scrape from his throat, scratching like an itch that wouldn’t subside, and he watched her smile.

“Oh, Aslan… you really don’t remember me? It’s me-- your old friend, Virginia.”

**Author's Note:**

> Unlike the first fic, I don’t have a set upload schedule for this, so it will be updated at my leisure.


End file.
